Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

In the brief time I have left, I will try to make a summation of all the points that have been made and answer each one of them.

I thank colleagues for their comments. I regret some of the polarisation of the language in some of the contributions, which I thought was unnecessary. This is something people from both sides of the House have strong views on. We should all respect one another's views without getting to the level of name-calling, which was very regrettable.

I will start by addressing the amendment from Labour and express my disappointment with its content and premise. I wish to express my surprise that the signatories to it include Alan Kelly from Tipperary, George Lawlor from Wexford and Mark Wall from Kildare. Those are three counties that have a massive economic benefit from the thousands of jobs that are generated in the horse racing and greyhound racing industries. They put their names to a motion that talks about this as a sport. Deputy Smith is missing the point. This is an industry. I am the Minister for agriculture and I am taking this. There is a reason I have responsibility for horse racing and greyhound racing. It is because it is an industry. It is an economic activity. Some 80% of horses that are bred are bred by farmers who have four mares or less. This is economic activity that provides thousands of jobs in those three counties I mentioned and all over rural Ireland. That is the point. People talk about it as a sport and compare it to sports that get capital grants and other measures. This is an industry and that economic activity is why the Government supports this sector. It is the right thing to do from an economic perspective as well as it being a key part of social and rural pursuits.

Deputies Kenny and Newsome Drennan talked about the greyhound sector, their love for it and their experience of it in the past. To address Deputies Kenny and Whitmore regarding some of the statistics they talked about as regards care homes on the greyhound side, those figures do not take into account the greyhounds that were accommodated at one of the greyhound care centres that ended up being selected for rehoming. They numbered among the 587 greyhounds that were rehomed through the international rehoming partners of the Irish Retired Greyhound Trust. That is an important point to make.

Deputy Whitmore talked about a waste of money. In 2025, RCÉ allocated €5.6 million to regulatory care and welfare expenditure. Under the RCÉ's traceability system, RCÉTS, figures at the end of quarter 3 in 2025 indicate that 59,708 greyhounds were subject to traceability, which is a key point.

Deputies Whitmore, Coppinger and others made the point around these activities not having public support. Horse racing's total reported attendances, supplied by each race course to Horse Racing Ireland for 2024, amounted to 1.242 million people attending races in 2024, which was up from 1.236 million in 2023. The first six months of 2025 have shown a healthy rise in reported racecourse attendances. Total attendances for that period were 566,377 people, up 6.9% on the same period in 2024. So, it is incumbent on all of us in this House when we throw away comments like "this does not have public support"-----

See this speech in context