Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As everyone will expect me to say, the Green Party is fundamentally against the greyhound industry. In fact, the party's manifesto says that we believe that public funding at least should be phased out for the industry.It has been a challenge for us. We knew on entering Government that we would have to make compromises. This is a compromise I find incredibly difficult, but it is important that I make the case for the decoupling of greyhound racing from horse racing every year, because they are two fundamentally different activities. Let us consider the statistics. People do not like greyhound racing and it is dying out. I live in a city where we have a greyhound racing track. It provides next to no employment because it is very casual in nature and people are not dependent on it for their income, so let us be honest about it. I also find it quite upsetting when people use rural Ireland as an excuse for everything. It is questionable that we would put industry over the welfare of animals, and that is happening in greyhound racing. People may not realise this but all the funding comes from gambling and it all goes into the one industry of horse racing and greyhound racing. It needs to be more evenly spread and, indeed, the Federation of Irish Sport also believes it needs to be equally spread across all sports.

Let us look at the funding. Some €91 million went into horse and greyhound funding this year. This was split 80:20 between horse racing and greyhound racing. A total of €18.2 million went to Rásaíocht Con Éireann. Let us compare this to some of the other things we spend that kind of money on. Under this Government, funding for the National Parks the Wildlife Service, NPWS, has doubled to €53 million, which is very positive. However, up until the formation of this Government, the funding going into the NPWS was not far off what is going into greyhound racing, and that does not make sense to me. Underlying this is the fact that funding from this State is going to the UK. Approximately 6,300 pups are exported every year to the industry in the UK. They are pups that are raised on the €18.2 million. Irish funding is being used to promote an industry in another country and we are standing by and watching this happen. In addition to the 6,300 pups, there is a surplus of 6,000 pups. These dogs never make it to a racing track. They are never chipped and traced. In some cases, we do not know where they go. Some are rehomed, some are exported without a trace, and we just do not know what happens to the others. Perhaps they disappear.

Under the law, in order for the funds to be distributed, the strategic plans of the organisations must not be deficient or unreasonable. That is correct for the horse racing industry, but I do not think it is correct for the greyhound industry. In one part of Rásaíocht Con Éireann's strategic plan, it states the organisation wants to dramatically reduce the number of dogs bred and in another part it states it wants to offer breeding incentives. Even in this small way, the strategic plan does not stack up.

The reason our hands are tied is because the funding is tied to the horse racing industry, which is not a bad industry. If we want transparency, a simple solution would be to decouple the two industries, as my colleague, Deputy Hourigan, and I have argued. This would allow for much better transparency and it would let the industry see if it can survive without the funding from gambling. If it can - fair enough - that is its own business. However, it should not be the business of the State to support the industry, not when we know about the welfare issues, not when we know that some of the funding is going to another country, and not when we know that it is an industry that is dying out, with only 16% of people saying they support it.

I know I will not be successful today, but it is important for me to continue to stand up and say this so that, eventually, we will get political success. If people were really honest and went back to their constituencies, they would find there are not that many people who back greyhound racing.