Equitation School represents ‘great value for money’

Kieran O’Gorman of the West Cork Horse Breeders this week declared that “the school represents great value for money” and he questioned if McCarthy was being “penny wise, but pound foolish”.

In last Friday’s Irish Examiner, it emerged that Cork South-West deputy McCarthy had tabled questions in the Dáil to Defence Minister Alan Shatter on the school’s purchase of horses and its travel costs. The Dunmanway-based politician said “the time when we can splash out millions of euros on projects like this has, unfortunately, come to an end” but clarified this by saying he was “not calling for the abolition of the school, but rather a need to review the cost of it”.

While it is incumbent on our parliamentarians to scrutinise every aspect of Government expenditure, O’Gorman countered: “This is a direct attack on the horse breeders in rural communities, who are already struggling in the current economic climate.”