Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There was no need. The option for us is simple, namely, to delete what the Minister had inserted and substitute “administration and governance (other than the administration and governance of point-to-point racing)". That is all we asked for. There is no big deal in that, from the Minister's perspective, but it is important for the point-to-points, the INHS and everybody else.

There is an old dictum. "If it's not broke, don't fix it". There was never a problem with the point-to-points. Indecon did not even make one recommendation on point-to-points and, by God, it got plenty of money to make sure it looked at everything. As far as I am concerned, it is a big grab. Out of the 30-odd proposals from Indecon, one was that we have a value-for-money review of HRI but, three and a half years later, we have heard nothing about that. Maybe that is one of the recommendations the Minister should be looking at, rather than trying to pin point-to-points down to the ground.

I do not want to be argumentative but when I believe in something, I go the extra yard to see that right is right. I will give way to Deputy Ferris' amendment because I do not care whose name is on it if it is for the betterment of this. We should go back and look at this, even in the Seanad debate, to see whether we can rectify this. The Bill has to go to the Seanad and we would all be agreeable if we could sort it out there.

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