Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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158. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to outline the Department's strategy for supporting the wider equine sector, particularly small-scale breeders and leisure horse owners. [34661/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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As you are aware, Ireland has a rich equestrian heritage, and has long been celebrated for its passion for horses and the exceptional quality of its equine industry. We are world-renowned for our affinity with horses and are proud of our reputation of being the ‘Land of the Horse’. The Irish equestrian industry has a deep-rooted history in our culture and is also a critical contributor to a balanced regional economy.

Therefore, I am committed to ensuring that the sport horse industry achieves its maximum potential, and in so doing, contributes to national economic and social development over a wide geographic distribution. This is an important pillar of current Government policy.

My Department provides approximately €6 million in funding annually for the development of the breeding and production side of the industry, through contracting services to deliver breeding and marketing initiatives and for specific equine industry projects, as follows:

• Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) is contracted to deliver National Breeding Services, which has a total budget of €4.4m per annum, while the Irish Horse Board (IHB) is contracted to deliver Marketing Services, with a total budget of €0.8m per annum.
• My Department also provides a secondary funding stream to the industry through the ‘Equine Technical Support and Equine Breeding Scheme’ (ETS), which has a budget of €854,000 for this coming year. The funding is allocated to various equine projects based on merit, using a competitive application process.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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159. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to detail the level of State investment in the horse sport and leisure industry, in each of the past 10 years, broken down by programme and county. [34662/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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The following tables outline the money provided from my Department to the sport horse sector in the past ten years:

From 2023, the sport horse sector funding was distributed under contract and split between national breeding services and marketing services.

**Budget Available

Other State investment which have benefited the sport horse sector from my Department during this period include:

• Under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, the equine sector was included in the Knowledge Transfer Programme which had a total budget of €100m.
• Eligible equine holders have an opportunity to obtain funding from the current Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS 3) which facilitates them to invest in important infrastructure for their farms. Supports are available for housing, training facilities and fencing which assists to make the breeding and handling of horses safer for farmers and the animals.
• Under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES), eligible equine breeders, who keep Connemara ponies, Kerry Bog ponies or Irish Draughts have had priority access to the scheme through the option on the ‘Conservation of Rare Breeds’ measure.