Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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We have an irony here in that the Department of agriculture has given €600,000 in Brexit funding to Horse Sport Ireland to administer and process passports and, at the same time, it is writing out to sales venues and telling them they cannot process the sale of foals unless they have a passport. The market is breaking down. We already see a fallback in the sales and value of young stock this year. We will go into it in more detail but I am extremely disappointed that the Department has not sat up and taken notice of what this committee is saying about Horse Sport Ireland. We have had virtually every affiliate in this sector come in here and tell us that this system is simply not working. Not only it is not working, but it is broken and it is doing huge, irreparable damage to the industry. When we meet in private next week I hope my colleagues will support me when I request that the Department appoint an independent auditor immediately to review operations at Horse Sport Ireland. We simply cannot allow matters to unfold in the manner they are at the moment.

With regard to Horse Sport Ireland and the Olympics, will Mr. Corrigan explain who is responsible for international showjumping up as far as the Olympics? Who looks after the teams?