Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am conscious of the contribution of the sport horse industry to the Irish economy, especially across rural Ireland. While the sector contributes over €700m to the economy and provides the equivalent of 12,500 full time jobs, its full potential has not been reached.

Against that background, last year I launched an initiative by Horse Sport Ireland, Teagasc, the Royal Dublin Society to devise a ten-year strategy for the sport horse industry and in February 2015, I launched their report entitled “Reaching New Heights: Report of Irish Sport Horse Industry Strategy Committee". The report contains a wide range of recommendations for the development of the sport horse industry over the next ten years, including improving quality through more focussed breeding, developing the education and training structures for the transfer of knowledge to breeders, improving the marketing and sales capacity across the industry, increasing participation in the sector, progressing the health and welfare of horses and deepening the institutional capacity to deliver on the goals of the strategy.

The Strategy Report provides a roadmap to inject greater confidence and professionalism into the industry and will be used as a vehicle to promote and inform policy with particular emphasis on job creation and sustainable enterprise development and the facilitation of export led growth. In addition to the annual grant and the equine infrastructure grants that my Department provides to Horse Sport Ireland, I allocated an additional sum of €600,000 to HSI for 2015 to facilitate their plans to enhance marketing, to increase prize-money across a range of competitions and to stimulate some innovative events.

One such innovative event organised by HSI in conjunction with Bord na gCon is ‘Jumping in the City’ whereby in the month of June showjumping competitions will take place at three greyhound stadia, Cork, Limerick and Shelbourne Park, with a view to raising the profile of showjumping. Also I recently launched the Knowledge Transfer measure under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020. This is one of a suite of measures included under the Rural Development Programme and will involve the formation and administration of knowledge transfer groups in the equine sector in 2015 which will be a vital part of an enhanced structure for education and training of equine breeders.