Horses left out of Rural Action Plan
“There are thousands of jobs in the equine sector, trainers, breeders, race courses, from small players up to big players,” said the Fianna Fail leader.
“There is not a mention of the sector, yet it is sustainable, it is organic and it is in located in rural Ireland.”
The Plan, entitled Realising our Rural Potential Action, was recently launched amid much fanfare by Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, and Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Heather Humphreys, as the first ever whole-of-government strategy aimed at delivering real change for people living and working in rural Ireland.
However, the Taoiseach has showed himself a defender of the horse sector against political attacks.
“The Irish horse racing industry is of exceptional importance to the economy and to the reputation of Ireland internationally,” said Mr Kenny in the Dail recently, when Dublin Fingal’s United Left TD, Clare Daly condemned the horse racing industry as “a world of vicious exploitation, wholesale and deliberate illegality, ruthless vested interests and criminal behaviour, without any proper oversight or regulation”.
She said stable staff are virtually indentured slaves, with no oversight of wages and conditions in the industry.
Nor was the industry without its critics in December, when Agriculture Minister Michael Creed kicked off the Oireachtas process to approve the budget 2017 allocation of €80 million for the horse and greyhound racing industries (€64m to Horse Racing Ireland and €16m to Bord na gCon).
New regulations were needed to agree a new upper funding limit, because the €1.03 billion paid into the horse and greyhound racing industries since 2001 had reached the existing limit.
These industries underpin more than 24,000 jobs and stimulate €1.6 billion in economic output, and exchequer funding is pivotal to their survival and continued development, said Mr Creed.
The Dáil supported the exchequer funding in a 105 to 39 vote, and the Seanad voted 30 to 8 in favour.
