Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The public has provided €310 million for the greyhound racing industry since 2001. That is a huge amount of money, without which I do not think the greyhound racing industry would continue in this country. I think that would be a good thing in terms of animal welfare. Of course, I wish to emphasise that nobody should be out of a job as a consequence of that. There needs to be a just transition for those involved in the greyhound racing industry, with everybody guaranteed a job of at least equivalent terms and conditions and so on.

I ask the Minister to respond to the reports published in The Sunday TimesIreland edition, in particular, those highlighting the fact that we are subsidising the low-cost sale of dogs to Britain, that the majority of Irish public funding that is provided to RCÉ effectively goes to supporting the British greyhound racing industry and that the Irish greyhound racing industry is sustaining a shortfall of over €30 million a year in supplying greyhounds to the UK.

See this speech in context