Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Our culture needs to change. This sector is receiving large amounts of money, in the millions of euro, without rigorous animal welfare criteria being satisfied or any conditions relating to workers' rights in the sector being attached to the funding. Is it an oversight issue, considering there have been numerous reports of serious animal welfare concerns? This has been notable in the last 12 months. This is a question the public will be putting to the Government as we move into election season. Providing this funding without any of these criteria being met must stop. The horse and greyhound fund will now receive €99.1 million in taxpayers' money, which is up by €4.1 million. This is an increase of 4.3% and is up from €95 million last year. How is this increase justifiable, especially considering that a significant amount of the funding is actually used for prizes? You could not make this up. I attended the Simon Community online event that spoke to the recent budget announcement and its context. We heard how we have not managed to increase our core social welfare payments, for example, to the same spending power they had in 2018. The population has increased by 133% since then, while inflation has increased by 109%. An interesting point to note is that the funding has been increased by €31.1 million in nine years, which is astonishing.

There are several alternative uses for the money. A total of €303 million has been allocated to homelessness services. This horse and greyhound funding represents one third of the money allocated to emergency accommodation, step-down accommodation and all other homeless services nationwide. In County Clare, for example, these services are receiving only an additional €300,000 and this only enables the services to stand still in respect of emergency accommodation.

I have a number of constituents who cannot access emergency accommodation so how can we increase capacity?

See this speech in context