Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am sure that people are quite anxious to hear the views of the Green Party today. Having listened to Senator Boylan, one could be forgiven for thinking that she was almost arguing against the greyhound industry when in fact her own party is in favour of the greyhound industry, as are the Labour Party, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. We are in a situation where we do not have the political will to ban an industry that the Green Party would like to see the end of. We have very different views on horse racing, and I will let my party colleague speak about that. I fundamentally do not understand the argument that one would support an industry and support funding to an industry but not support workers in the time of Covid. That is the first thing I will say.

I want to talk about animal welfare because it is really close to my heart, and close to the Green Party's heart. We argued and fought our corner in the programme for Government negotiations, and we have the biggest support for animal welfare in this programme for Government. Many here have mentioned the welfare organisations who are struggling, with which I completely concur. In the programme for Government there is a doubling of funding for animal welfare organisations within two years. That has never happened before in a programme for Government. There will also be the phasing out of fur farming, the ending of badger culling and many other measures, including the enforcement of laws, as referred to by Senator Hoey. The laws are there but they are not actually enforced. This is what we need to address.

We also want to see new policies and new laws put into place, and part of this is to develop an urban horse welfare programme. Many of the Members who may have been on city councils will be aware that we have an issue with horse welfare in our cities and towns.

I believe the Minister when he says he is going to address the issue of the welfare of dogs within the industry, because it is fundamental to the Green Party. We believe that under this Government we will see an end to the kind of cruelty that was on display in the RTÉ programme last year and that was mentioned by many.We can see rehoming programmes, homes for retired dogs and an end to the killing of animals we all love, have in our homes and profess to care for.

Without any further mention of that, I will leave it to my colleague to speak about horse racing.