Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Carthy has told the House that the greyhound industry is a success story that should be celebrated. I do not agree with that. Deputy Kelly of the Labour Party says that he has a small interest in a racing greyhound. Both Deputies have voiced their support for animal welfare but ignore the fact that animal cruelty is at the heart of the greyhound industry in this country. If the average age of a racing dog is two and a half to three years, what happens when the dog is too old? What happens if it is injured or if it is too slow? "RTÉ Investigates" answered those questions in its programme. Nearly 6,000 dogs were slaughtered in 2017 alone. This is a declining industry. Attendance fell by 55% between 2008 and 2018. Tracks have lost €30 million since 2019. RED C asked a cross-section of people whether they felt the State should continue to fund the industry. Only 16% said "Yes."

The industry is being kept alive by State funding and sponsorship. There is to be €17.6 million for next year and there has been €310 million since the inception of the fund. I will give the Minister a suggestion as to how that fund could be better spent. The fund is basically the State's take from gambling on these two industries being handed back to them and amounts to an incredible €1.5 billion since the inception of the fund, which says something about the scale of gambling in this country. Rather than giving this money back to industries that thrive on gambling, why not give moneys to support people who suffer from addiction? It is a very significant issue in this country. Some 50,000 people are severely affected by gambling addiction while 200,000 are at risk of gambling addiction. This would be a far better way to spend some of those moneys than to hand them back to the industries, including the greyhound industry, which has animal cruelty at its core. It is not incidental; it is at its core. Deputies should not be covering up for that.

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