Dept. of Agriculture, Food and the Marine at the Public Accounts Committee

Full Transcript:
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I want to get through a range of issues but I will start with the horse and greyhound racing fund. The 80:20 split is set in law as I understand it. Is there any flexibility in it?
Let us say one of them is performing in a way the State is quite happy with and the other is not.
During Covid we saw a situation where Horse Racing Ireland needed additional subvention.
Because we were locked into this rigid 80:20 split we then had to top up Greyhound Racing
Ireland to the same amount. Is there any flexibility in the legislation or is it 80:20 regardless of
how either of the institutions is behaving?
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: The simple answer is that I do not believe there is flexibility.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Has this been looked at? I understand it is a single line in
legislation that outlines the 80:20 split.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: Something I have been asked in the context of the report is whether
I would look at this. I have a difficulty with that because it is Government policy and I cannot
report to the committee on Government policy. What I can say is this issue was pretty well
ventilated at the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine a while ago. In a
way it does not require a report. The advantages are clear in that it provides certainty around
the funding of the greyhound sector and horseracing sector in a way that successive Governments have felt to be appropriate. The disadvantage is what has been mentioned by Deputy Ó
Cathasaigh in that they both get—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is extraordinary that there is no accountability to go along
with the funding in either of the sectors.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I do not think it is true to say there is no accountability. Both of
these bodies are accountable to the Oireachtas. I have oversight arrangements. All of the normal accountability arrangements are in place but the funding arrangements are set in law. It is
always possible to change the law. I am precluded from commenting on the merits or demerits
of Government policy and I know Deputy Ó Cathasaigh knows this.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Yes. It does seem extraordinary to me. I suppose I can
comment on it. The fund is financed through excise duty collected from a tax on betting. Legitimate points were made during the week that online betting has changed where betting is
happening. It is only these two sports, as I understand it, that benefit from this fundraising
mechanism. Whether this is right, just or correct is a separate issue. If a deficit arises it is
topped up by Exchequer funding. How often is it topped up by Exchequer funding? How often
is the full amount made up from this excise duty?
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I touched on this earlier. I said the term “fund” is a bit of a misnomer. There was a hypothecated tax up to 2009 but the reality is that what happens now is
a negotiation in the context of the normal Estimates process every year and funding is made
available through the Estimates. Part of the justification for this is that the full cost of the Estimate is more or less covered by the betting tax. There is a tenuous link between the funding
provided now and the betting tax. In other words this betting tax is not taken out of one account
and put into another for the benefit of these bodies. It is not hypothecated in this way. This is
the way it has operated since 2009.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: In the specific context for 2021 it was €96 million overall.
Mr. Gleeson is saying it is not strictly hypothecated and I understand what he is saying on this.
Do we know what was the revenue from the excise tax on betting in 2021? Was it of the order
of €96 million? It is certainly presented in the public eye—–
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: Yes.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: —–that the money from the betting covers the outlay here.
This is absolutely understood in the eye of the public.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: To a large extent this is true. There is a betting tax and the betting
tax was certainly of the amount of the mid €90 millions in 2022. This is correct. It covers or
close to matches the cost of this but it is not a strict process of hypothecation. It is part of the
policy picture that supports the investment in these sectors.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is a difficult one to accept. I know what Mr. Gleeson
is saying. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and
Reform does not like the idea of hypothecation but it certainly exists in the public eye. The
documentation we have states that if there is a shortfall it is topped up by Exchequer funding.
What Mr. Gleeson is saying is this is not the case and the full amount is made available through
Exchequer funding and through the Vote.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: Let me put—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It would be fair for us to expect to be able to have clear sight
of how much is coming in, albeit not strictly hypothecated, versus how much goes out.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: What we have clear sight on is how much betting tax is coming in.
Before coming to this meeting I tried to get some figures on what came from where in terms
of various sectors. I am not sure Revenue has it. I could not get it anyway. We have sight of
what is coming in and we have sight of what is going out through the Estimates process, and we
have a say every year in this context. There is then a specific issue that under the legal provisions we have to get the fund approved separately to the Estimates process. We have to go to
the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine every year and get the amount
in the fund approved. It goes through a further process in the Oireachtas beyond what normal
Estimates go through.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am keeping an eye on the clock. I want to come back to
the issue on the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board. The Department asked for information on
remuneration and staff salary bands in 2021. Was is forthcoming?
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: It did not come through that year but it will be in the accounts for
2022 if I am not mistaken.
Ms Caroline Ball: Yes, that is correct. It will be in the accounts for 2022.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I know what has been said about it being an independent
body but it derives a lot of funding from the taxpayer. In May 2021 it stated the maximum early
retirement payment to any individual would not exceed 104 weeks of salary and-or equivalent
redundancy calculations and there would be no exception to this. Subsequently in June it paid
the CEO €142,000, or 58%, more than the amount payable if the scheme conditions had been
applied as stated. Surely the Committee of Public Accounts and the Secretary General of the
Department have a view on public money being spent in this way against the organisation’s
own advice.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: Yes, I agree. That happened in September 2021. I certainly was not
aware of it. I do not believe HRI was aware of it at the time. It did not sanction it. The IHRB’s
position was that the top-up did not derive from public funds but from its own private funding.
This is a little bit of a circular argument.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I absolutely accept that. We have asked HRI to look at this from
a legal perspective to see what can be done about it. In the context of our own governance of
the organisations we have agreed to conduct a governance review. The rules on this should
be clear. In the context of State agencies there is a circular that states what CEOs should be
paid and this determines their pension arrangements. This is not exactly a State agency. It is
a private organisation. In the context of the horseracing Acts it provides a statutory function
as a regulatory body. It is one of these atypical bodies. When we introduced the legislation in
2016 we were anxious to improve governance without compromising the independence of the
organisation and without compromising the traditions of the sector. This is a body that is made
up of the Irish national hunt club and the Turf Club, with a long history of tradition in providing
very good service to the racing sector. There are things we have to look at and we have committed to look into them 100%.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: We need accountability for public money. That is our role
here, certainly. I want to talk quickly about the TB eradication programme, which Deputy
Colm Burke went into in a great deal of detail in the first contribution. It is a lot of money. Are
we analysing it for value for money? I absolutely want to qualify that by saying, and Mr. Gleeson said it at the start, that there has been great progress. I absolutely know and understand the
stress people come under when one of their herd goes down on the reactor. The pressure that
applies to a farm family is absolutely massive. I am in no way downplaying that. We are setting this goal of eradication. Is that an achievable goal? I was looking at the spatial distribution
of the TB restrictions in Ireland. There is a real concentration around the Border counties or at
least there was in 2019. Is that still the picture? How are we judging value for money for this?
I understand the importance of the programme, but can we get to a position of eradication? Is
that a realistic and attainable goal? We are being asked to justify total expenditure of up to €1
billion between now and 2030.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: I will start on this, and I might ask the expert to come in then in a
few minutes. I said earlier that we have to have an eradication programme. If we did not have
an eradication programme, we could not trade. That has to be our objective. The measures—–
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am sorry; in an international context, I know places like
Spain and Portugal have a completely different climate and agricultural system. This is in terms
of Wales, Scotland and England and the international context. I know exactly what Mr. Gleeson
is saying. To trade on our beef and all the rest of it, we have to say that eradication is where we
are going.
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: Yes.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Can Mr. Gleeson show me an international comparison that
is an actual comparison as opposed to a hotter, drier climate with fewer head of beef etc? Is this
achievable? Have we seen this achieved in a similar context elsewhere?
Mr. Brendan Gleeson: Before I ask Dr. Fanning to come in, because she is the expert, we
had a similar issue with brucellosis a number of years ago, which seemed equally intractable
and was going on for decades. We now have brucellosis-free status. Therefore, it is possible
to do these things, but it is not easy. Some of the things we might have to do may be unpopular
and some may be costly. Our approach now, however, because I do not think it can be done any
other way, is to try to work with farmers through a TB forum to try to agree on measures. If
we try to impose measures on the people who are affected by this disease without consultation,
it tends not to work very effectively. Sometimes, we might be able to eradicate this disease by
taking extreme measures, for example, which would not wash politically with farmers or farm
bodies. There is a degree of fairness involved. We have to work with farm bodies on what is
possible.
I will ask Dr. Fanning to comment on the international comparison if it is not imposing too
much of a burden on her.
Dr. June Fanning: With regard to international comparison, the wildlife component is the
difficult piece in relation to TB. It has been eradicated elsewhere in the world, such as Australia, for example, but they were able to deal with the wildlife host or species that was involved
in a different way than we can with the badger. The badger is a protected species. While we
cull badgers as part of the TB eradication programme, we recognise that it is not a sustainable
solution long-term. That is why we have rolled this out after extensive research has shown that
badger vaccination is no worse than culling from a disease control point of view. The wildlife
piece does complicate the eradication but as the Secretary General said, we have the right tools
now in the TB forum to address it with stakeholders from the farming bodies to private veterinary practitioners to meat processors and all the stakeholders involved across the chain. As the
Deputy pointed out, it is a serious financial and emotional difficulty to anyone who is locked
up with TB.
From our point of view, it is a multifactorial disease, and the spread happens in a number
of different ways. A lot of stuff has been introduced through the forum and through our approach to it in the Department to tackle the individual outbreaks so that the source of infection
is identified with an outbreak. While the outbreaks are hovering around the early 20,000 for
reactor numbers, the herd incident for 2021 or 2022 had decreased slightly, which is good. We
are seeing less herds go down but larger outbreaks within those herds. As I touched on earlier,
that is with regard to dairy expansion, larger herds, fragmented herds or herds that buy in more
animals. Part of the problem there is that they are at higher risk because of the number of movements. It is, therefore, a very complex disease but we are addressing it across a number of areas
and with stakeholders, which will ultimately lead to eradication.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: On the badgers—–
An Cathaoirleach: Deputy Ó Cathasaigh might be brief. I will bring him back in later.
Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh: On culling versus vaccination, I have all sorts of reasons
why I do not like badger culling from my own political background. I also understood it to
be fantastically expensive per badger culled, however. Are we phasing that out as a practice
entirely? Are we moving towards vaccination? Where does the balance lay currently? What
is the current state of play?
Dr. June Fanning: The balance currently, if we take 2022, for example, is that just over
12,000 badgers were involved in the wildlife programme. Just over 7,000 of them would have
been vaccinated and 5,000 would have been culled. That is a serious shift from what we would
have had at the start in 2019 when we rolled out vaccination. It would have been less than 2,000
and we still would have been dealing with similar numbers of badgers. It is something we are
phasing out.