Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I rise to propose an amendment to the Government's motion. I find it very frustrating that year after year, we have this vote on funding for two specific sectors. I am deeply conscious that they are sectors that are held in great love and affection in certain rural communities in this country but they also have very serious animal welfare questions to answer, in particular in the greyhound industry with regard to the registration system that is in place and the delays in registration, occurring 12 weeks after the birth of a greyhound, and the lack of clarity as to the greyhounds that have died and the exportation of greyhounds. They are very fundamental and serious questions.

That is why the Labour Party is bringing forward an amendment to the Government's motion to ultimately call for an urgent review and indeed a replacement of section 12 of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Act 2001, whereby we have this vote every year through which we now are about to give €99.1 million to the horse and greyhound sector in this country, a 46% increase over the decade, with no conditionality with regard to workers' rights in the sector and with very opaque conditionality with regard to animal welfare. I heard what the Minister had to say with regard to animal welfare, but there are no conditions attached to the funding in this scheme to the sectors. That we would have any funding without a clear statutory conditionality or responsibility is a fundamental problem.

To those who watch these issues much more carefully than I do, and from listening to them, I believe there are very serious issues now as to why we prioritise and give such funding to these two sectors at a cost of supporting other sports in this country. The argument is always that this is about supporting these two sports and the jobs associated with them, yet we see that the vast majority of the money goes into the prize money in these sports, with no cost-benefit analysis as to who is actually participating in the sports. This blanket fund that goes to the sector has to end and we need to have a grown-up conversation about supporting these two sectors. I often have say to people that this fund has been in place for only 23 years. The way some people talk about it, you would swear it has been there since the foundation of the State but it is very much a creation of a Fianna Fáil Government to support two sectors and put an enormous amount of money in when there are many other sports, like soccer, football and minority sports, that could do with that money and of course do not get it.

I say all this in the context that many people out there have greyhounds and participate in racing for the love of it. There are others who are involved because it is a business, and it is those for whom it is a business where I have a fundamental issue. My background is that we have a cup at home, the Bowman Cup, from a race my dad contested 50 years ago, from coursing. I am very conscious that there is a proud tradition among rural communities, but they did not need State money to organise those races or to put in place what was a race. Effectively, what we see now is the huge commercialisation of that sport, brought on by this fund and with very serious welfare questions that remain outstanding and that the Government has failed to answer and a serious need for reorganisation as to how any supports to any sports are organised in this country. I am conscious the Minister is obviously not the Minister for sport, but the rationale has so often been that horse racing and greyhound racing are sports and that this money is for those sports and goes primarily to prize money as opposed to anything else in the sector.

That is our amendment; I wish to move it.