Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to discuss the prestigious, internationally recognised multi-billion euro horse racing industry, which is considered to be one of the jewels in Ireland's crown and where, behind the glistening exterior, lurks a world of vicious exploitation, wholesale and deliberate illegality, ruthless vested interests and criminal behaviour, without any proper oversight or regulation.

Tens of millions of euro of citizens' money continues to be pumped into this industry every year. Ironically, on the very day that the Government was facilitating the sanction of the last tranche of cash in the week before Christmas and questions were being asked in this House about the flagrant breaches of working conditions in the industry, a collective agreement was announced between the Irish Stable Staff Association and the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, to reassure us all that the problems had been solved and there was nothing further to see. Of course, that was a sham, a conjuring trick. The Irish Stable Staff Association, despite being represented on the board of Horse Racing Ireland, is not a trade union or a negotiating body. It has no membership or employees. It does not produce annual reports and one cannot join the association through its website.

In regard to the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, we are told that trainers must be registered with the Turf Club and as such they could not be charging any less favourable rates. That is not true. The Turf Club has no oversight of wages and conditions in the industry. When it wrote to the trainers last year seeking P60s and returns for staff who were paid more than €25,000 in order to distribute a pension scheme, it received a list of only 300 names. How can it be that there are only 300 workers earning more than €25,000 in a multi billion euro industry with thousands of workers? The Turf Club wrote again to the trainers, this time lowering the horizon to €12,500, in respect of which it received a list of 800 names. Where are all those 800 staff? They are buried in the bowels of the black economy - cash-in-hand, on the dole, racing allowances agreed with Revenue as tax-free expenditure being calculated as part of the minimum wage, no contracts, no tea breaks, no time sheets - in an industry that is so brazen its collective agreement advertises illegality.

There is something very rotten at the heart of Irish horse racing which we have not fully figured out. However, we are learning more every day. Is the Taoiseach willing to help? Is he willing to launch a co-ordinated multi-agency swoop on the industry, involving officials from NERA, Revenue, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Health and Safety Authority of Ireland, because that is what is necessary?

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