Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

To insert the following after "13th October, 2022": "; that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine shall:

— conduct a full review of the Exchequer funding to the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund (Fund) with a view to examining:

— the social and economic impact of the Fund, including the efficacy of the Fund in supporting the development of both sectors, the broadest cohort of those involved in both sectors and rural communities;

— whether the use of the Fund to subsidise prize funds represents best value for money; and

— the efficacy of the Fund in ensuring the highest levels of animal welfare standards; and

— report to Dáil Éireann within six months of these Regulations being adopted on the findings of the review".

I welcome members of the Blayney Blades, one of the great community organisations from County Monaghan, who are visiting the Dáil today. Cuirim fáilte rompu uilig.

Nobody disputes, or at least the vast majority of people accept, that horse racing and greyhound racing are important aspects of our rural communities and generate significant economic input in such communities, many of whom have few other economic generators. Few dispute that the State is right to support both sectors financially. Sinn Féin supports the principal of supporting the horse and greyhound racing sectors in order to ensure they contribute to the greatest possible extent to rural communities and our domestic economy and to ensure we can insist on the highest standards of integrity, transparency, accountability and animal welfare.

We are debating today a proposal to deliver taxpayer funds of €91 million to those sectors. No rationale has ever been provided for arriving at that figure. It is a huge sum of money. The Sinn Féin amendment requests that the Minister conduct a full review of all funding in respect of this fund. Such a review should analyse: the economic impact of the fund, including its efficacy in supporting the development of both sectors, the broadest cohort of those involved in the sectors and rural communities; whether the portion of the funds used, particularly by HRI, to subsidise prize funds is the best value for money; and the efficacy of the funding in ensuring the highest animal welfare standards.

A similar motion and amendment was brought forward last year and the Minister rejected it on the basis that this type of analysis is conducted all the time. There is no evidence that such an analysis has ever been carried out by the Department and nobody has ever provided a rational basis for a fund now approaching €100 million per annum that is divided 80% to 20% between HRI and RCÉ regardless of the circumstances.

We asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to look at this. It is the only aspect of State funding we can find where two distinct and separate organisations have their funding linked on a pro rata basis to this degree. It makes no sense. The Minister told the committee last week that he looks at the business cases provided by the organisations and then decides the horse and greyhound funding for the subsequent year.

It is impossible to accept, and is verging on the unbelievable, to suggest that every single year two separate business cases are brought before the Department and every single year those cases make a sufficiently worthy appeal to get taxpayers to fund the tune of tens of millions of euros based on an 80:20 split. It does not make sense and it does not stand up to scrutiny. It certainly does not inspire confidence that this fund is subjected to the highest levels of accountability and transparency we should expect in respect of funds. The conditionality that is associated is incredibly limited. There are no results-based criteria on which this fund is dependent. Either organisation can say it is spending a portion of the fund on animal welfare but there is no basis on which we can actually assess whether that level of funding has made an impact on improving the reputation which has been tarnished by animal welfare issues which have been made public in recent years.

It has been well rehearsed that there have been issues within the greyhound sector. I accept that many within the sector have gone to great lengths to address those issues. We also know that there have been issues in respect of horse racing which have damaged the reputation of that industry. Again, those activities have been carried out by a minority. The need to address that reputational damage is not helped when the Minister cites an independent expert who carried out a review of the anti-doping measures. His assessment from his report is that Ireland meets the highest of international standards. That would be all well and good if that international expert had actually set foot on the island of Ireland while conducting that exercise. However, it was an entirely computer-based model without attending any racetrack, without attending any stables and without speaking to anybody directly involved in the sector or on a farm.

Concerns have been raised. As a substantial amount of taxpayers' money is involved, it is not good enough to say that because we support certain sectors, we support whatever sum of money the Department decides without knowing the basis for how it reached that sum of money. The Minister has not explained the increase from what was allocated in 2017 to the sum of money proposed today. He never set out precisely how he came to the conclusion that €11 million in additional funding is needed today as opposed to four years ago. On what rationale is that based? How did he come to the decision that it should be distributed once again on a perfect 80:20 basis? I urge the Minister to accept our amendment to ensure we have higher standards of accountability and transparency for this public money. We need to restore public confidence in both sectors and ensure both sectors and everybody involved benefits from this funding as well as the communities in which they live.

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