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

Some €91 million has been provided to subsidise animal cruelty. This is incredible. This is compared with €15 million total in core funding for sports organisations in this country, including the FAI, the GAA, Swim Ireland and the Olympic Federation of Ireland. The Government wants to hand over €91 million, the Green Party is going against its professed position to support this, and the Labour Party and Sinn Féin are shamefully sitting on the fence, trying to have it both ways.

As has been pointed out, this is wildly out of touch with the views of ordinary people. A poll in 2019 showed that 80% of people who had an opinion agreed that the Irish Government should stop funding greyhound racing. That poll was done before this year’s discovery of the greyhound skeletons that had been dumped 2 km from the Newbridge Greyhound Stadium and before the recent confirmation that, in horse racing, €42 million in public funds were paid out in prize money to multimillionaires at horse races last year.

Over the past 20 years, we have transferred a reported a total of €1.54 billion to both industries. What could €91 million do? It could double, to 282, the number of refuge spaces for those fleeing domestic violence and we would still have money to spare. The figure of €91 million is more than the total that is being allocated to the retrofitting of local authority social housing in 2023. It is a scandal that the Government prioritises funding for greyhound and horse racing over any of these vital issues.

There is rightly much debate on the issue of greyhound racing every year, but the question of horse racing and where this money is going will increasingly come into question as well. The Minister and I debated this. The truth is this money ends up in the hands of multimillionaires.

According to the horse racing industry's most recent fact book, the top three winners are J.P. McManus, Michael O'Leary and John Magnier, people who are all already millionaires. They are the ones who are ending up with this money. Some 72% of the prize money goes to the racehorse owners. Only 10% goes to jockeys and trainers and only 8% to stable staff, charities and industry organisations.

Cruelty is widespread in the greyhound industry. We have seen the 2019 RTÉ documentary reporting that the industry was breeding up to 1,000% more puppies than it needed, resulting in 6,000 dogs per year being killed because they were deemed not to be fast enough. Within the industry, this is referred to as "wastage". It is incredible and outrageous that, year after year, this Dáil agrees to give almost €100 million to these industries.

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