Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To answer Deputy Deering's point, there was in effect an amnesty in Ireland when the new requirements on passports and microchips were introduced to give people a chance to catch up with that new regulation. We cannot introduce another amnesty. The rules are the rules. Everybody understands, or should understand, the rules at this stage. We need to educate people and implement them. Getting a microchip and a passport for a horse is not a particularly expensive process. We must be clear and uncompromising in terms of imposing the rules and regulations.

On the use of drugs in horses, testing can be done in factories, as we do for phenylbutazone in particular, to ensure horses do not go into the human food chain if they should not go into it. That is because "bute" remains in an animal's system for many years once it has been applied. The reason we only use "bute" testing is that it is a test to determine whether animals have been given veterinary medicines that may be inappropriate to enter the human food chain. However, I will examine what the Deputy requested, namely, whether there are more detailed and comprehensive tests that could be used in an affordable way to try to screen horses more directly because there is a problem now in Ireland in terms of what to do with sport horses that have been treated that are reaching the end of their days. The number of horses that have been going to knackeries has significantly increased. That involves a cost for the owner rather than the opposite being the case, namely, getting payment for a horse if it is brought to a factory for processing for human consumption.

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