Victor Boyhan (Independent)

I welcome the Minister. What better man to know about racing than himself in the county that has Punchestown, Naas and the Curragh, all of which I have attended on many occasions?

I support the fund. We had a long, reasonable debate last night. The Minister touched on a number of the issues, so I will not repeat them. They are on the record of the Oireachtas. Not everyone here may know it but the Department issues a letter of parameters every year about funding, which is very important. We discussed that last night at the joint Oireachtas committee on agriculture. It is important that the detail in those letters is continued because they set down the parameters, as the Minister said to us last night. We need greater emphasis on welfare. For those who are not directly involved, Horse Sport Ireland, HSI, does not get this funding. The Minister explained all of that well last night.

There has been a lot of damaging publicity for the horse industry and I like to talk about that in its broadest sense. Horse Sport Ireland does amazing work. There is the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, IHRB, and there is Horse Racing Ireland, HRI. I commend their work. In time, we might need to look at this whole fund again to see if we can include others. I will again make the case that there should be some money set aside in this fund - it may need new changes or to be tweaked through legislation - for Horse Sport Ireland, as it is a very important part of the equestrian world. The regulation around that is weak. That is not a criticism of HSI but there may need to be additional funding for it. Of course, there is the international equestrian team and there are great things going on in the equestrian world generally, such as in eventing, cross-country, etc. When we talk about the Irish sport horse or race horse, people outside the industry see it all as being one collective. It is an amazing thing we can be so proud of in Ireland. I know the Minister is a champion of it and he comes from one of the greatest horse counties in the country, Kildare, and he represents it well.

I acknowledge the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board and the work it does. Its strategy is from 2024 to 2027. We keep a track on it - I certainly do - and it is making great progress. I thank the board. I take this opportunity to thank Ms Suzanne Eade, who heads up Horse Racing Ireland, for the important work she does and the management of Horse Sport Ireland. I ask that, in the future, we might look at that.

The Minister mentioned in his presentation last night and again today that, following a request from the Committee of Public Accounts, his Department had submitted an internal review of governance of the fund. Clearly, there may be issues we are not privy to now and we do not need to be privy to at this point. There is a process in place. It is in the hands of the Committee of Public Accounts but when possible, we should see a summary or an executive summary of that report to see if there are lessons from that or new recommendations.

I ask the Minister to keep an open mind on these matters and put a strong emphasis on welfare and governance in his Department's letter on the parameters. It is a huge amount of money, regardless of what anyone thinks. As the Minister told the committee last night, the governance side of this is critical because this industry will only survive if people have confidence in it and it has international integrity. We have to compete on the international stage. I wish the Minister well and he has my full support for this proposal.