Mr. Flor Madden:

The coaching levels are organised by HSI. For level 1, the assistant coach level, the most recent course was in the spring of last year. For level 2, the national level, it has been more than five years since the most recent course. For level 3, the international level, the most recent course was in 2015. I will speak more about level 1, the assistant coach level. I stand to be corrected, but I think the cost of that course used to be approximately €300. More recently, it has gone up to €3,200 or €3,300, which is a 1000% increase. Let us focus on that for a moment. Level 1 coaches tend to be the younger people who we need to come into our industry. Teagasc enters an international competition for young breeders and Ireland won the world championship a couple of years ago. Many of those young people, under the age of 23 or 24, had planned to do the level 1 course before the 1000% increase in the cost. That plan evaporated. Coaching is the big request here. If we do not coach, people are not going to come into our schools and we are not going to be able to get our riders up to a good level. We are not going to be able to get people to produce horses at a high enough level. Coaching is the big request.

Senator Boyhan suggested that the RDS wants to take over. I would love to set the record straight and I am sure the Senator will hear it later. That is absolutely not the case. The RDS does not want to take over. In the history of the RDS, it has never taken over. The RDS helped to set up the National Gallery of Ireland and the RDS stepped away. The National Museum of Ireland was set up by the RDS and it stepped away. I could mention the Botanic Gardens and go on and on. The RDS does not want to take over. It wants to support and help.