Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Mattie McGrath, or he is sharing it with me.

I express my support for the small trainers. They are greyhound men and women and genuine people. Never in their lives would they engage in activity such as mistreating their animals, drugging dogs or engaging in any of that nonsense. They are respectable people whom I admire. I go to the greyhound track in Tralee. A person could not go to a better place on a Friday or a Saturday night. It is a great fund-raiser. Local community groups, schools and GAA clubs use the facilities where people come together. It is a great place for young people and children to go to because it is safe and they enjoy it. It is a great community activity. However, I cannot get my head around how it is acceptable for a person who drugs a dog and has that unfair advantage to run that dog again. We all know that the dog is innocent and does not take the drugs. However, if it tests positive a week or two or three weeks later, how can the person in question run it again? It is the person who is wrong.

I fully support the greyhound industry. I am behind every person involved in it. For the small greyhound breeders and those who love a little win now and then, it balances their books a little if they receive some prize money. For God's sake, tackle the unfair advantage which I describe as the criminal element. Anyone who drugs a dog is engaging in a criminal act.

See this speech in context