Last night, in dealing with this matter, I had stated that propaganda in favour of the measure is an essential part of its success. I am driven more firmly to that conclusion having read the report of a speech made here yesterday evening by Deputy Mrs. Redmond, in the course of which she said that this Bill created a monopoly and that, if it were enacted, it would finish racing. I do not know what she means by a "monopoly". In the ordinary way, monopoly means that a particular individual or body has an exclusive control of, and a right to, operate a certain business or company. Racing has never been operated as a monopoly here and nothing in this Bill, no matter how it is construed, can give either the new board or anybody connected with racing, a monopoly of control and management. It is true that the Turf Club and the National Hunt Steeplechase Committee are the only Turf Club and National Hunt Steeplechase Committee in the country.
I am quite sure that Deputy Mrs. Redmond does not suggest that we should have two turf clubs and two national hunt steeplechase committees managing racing. So far as this Bill is concerned, the Turf Club and the stewards of the National Hunt Steeplechase Committee will continue to exist but, in addition, the board set up under the Bill will have exclusive control of the management of the funds derived under the Bill. From Deputy Mrs. Redmond's statement and certain other observations made here, it might appear that the levy proposed to be derived under this Bill would operate as a tax and that the funds would be devoted to the Exchequer. As an instance of that, the previous tax, which operated directly as an Exchequer tax, was cited. The previous tax differed entirely from this tax inasmuch as the funds passed into the ordinary Central Fund and did not operate to the benefit of racing except in so far as any moneys out of the Central Fund might do so. In this case, the revenue proposed to be derived is for the exclusive use of racing—breeders, racehorse owners and everybody connected or associated with racing.
The board has wide powers as regards the distribution of the funds which this levy will bring to it. The Long Title of the Bill sets out the various matters with which it is proposed to deal. At the risk of recapitulation, I should like to point out that, for the success of this Bill, what it proposes to do must be understood. It will not help the Bill or the racing public or those connected with racing to misinterpret, either deliberately or innocently, the proposals contained in the measure. This Bill is exclusively designed to assist horse breeding and everything connected with it. The most important thing for the success of horse breeding and racing under this Bill is the personnel of the board. It has been stated, possibly with a certain degree of foundation, that if the governing bodies have a complete majority, racing in the metropolitan area may be developed to the detriment of racing elsewhere. For that reason, I should like to point out to the Minister the necessity of securing adequate representation for areas in the south and west, and such places as Tramore.
It is difficult to get a person who will adequately represent all those areas, or the persons concerned, but I am sure the Minister's advisers will be able to help. I might add that those advisers are to be complimented on assisting the Minister in drafting and bringing in this measure. They undertook this work although it might be described as a departure from their usual activities. They took the trouble to master all the details and necessary facts connected with racing and they deserve a full measure of credit for so doing. In no way can it be said that this Bill has been drafted by persons who know nothing whatever about racing. One has only to read the Bill or to have listened to the introductory speech of the Minister to know that if the Minister himself is not fully conversant with all the ins and outs of the subject he has taken the trouble to make himself acquainted with, and his advisers have informed him of, the essential needs.
This question of meetings outside the metropolitan area is one which might interfere with the success of the board. Since the emergency, a number of people have been forced to the conclusion that racing is being developed exclusively in the metropolitan area and that other areas are being neglected. It is quite easy to understand how racing has become centralised. Transport is almost impossible except on a very limited scale. The large racing stables and the people in racing in a big way have their horses centralised at the Curragh and places around the city, such as Phoenix Park and a few other near areas. These people are faced with the difficulty of getting horses to meetings and it is far more convenient for them and for the large majority of the racing public, who are in the metropolitan area, to attend a race meeting near the city than in the country. Consequently, the Turf Club and the National Hunt Steeplechase Committee, as well as the emergency committee set up by the Government to deal with the matter, were faced with the difficulty of carrying on racing at all. They had to hold meetings in or near Dublin, or the Curragh, and a few other important places where large numbers of horses are trained. While the small meetings have suffered during the emergency, the explanation is that transport and other facilities which were available before the war were not available during the emergency.
I am sure that there is no intention on the part of the Turf Club, the National Hunt, the transport authorities, the racing executives or anybody connected with racing to interfere in any way with the smaller meetings after the war, or even during the emergency, if it be possible to hold those meetings. Running the risk of financial loss and small fields, the committees in some of these cases have held a number of meetings—successful meetings, which catered exclusively for horses trained in either the southern or western regions. Since the emergency, racing has been regionalised so as to facilitate trainers and owners in racing in a certain area and give them an opportunity of winning races free from the keen competition to which they would otherwise be subjected from the larger stables at the Curragh and around Dublin. I should like, therefore, to impress upon the Minister the absolute necessity of ensuring adequate representation for racecourse committees and racing executives outside the metropolitan area in order that no criticism may be heard that this Bill deals exclusively with racing in and around the metropolitan area or exclusively with the large owner.
That brings me to the second point, that racing depends for its success on a number of factors. First of all, it depends on the public who attend the meetings and, secondly, on the owners and trainers and jockeys who run, ride and deal with horses at each meeting; and, of course, on the breeders. Racing in this country is almost entirely composed of small owners, who either train their horses themselves or have them trained locally. Some of these people breed the horses, others buy them and train them for a while in the hope of winning a race and selling the horse subsequently. It is also made up of a number of large owners, not all of whom are from foreign parts. In fact, Deputies who made attacks on those people who are spending large sums of money here, who have invested very large interests in racing, who are of considerable benefit not alone to racing but to the general economy of the country, forget that for a number of years now Irish people the large Irish owners and some of the small ones, have been the leading owners when the winnings were totalled. I think that for the last three or four years prominent Irish people have been in the first three or four on the list. While large English strings have come over here, they have been able to compete but have not been able to beat the horses trained and owned by Irishmen.
If we are to depend here for our success on the public attending the meetings, and on the owners and trainers racing horses, we must ensure that they will have reasonably good stakes to win. Some people in making their observations seem to forget that pre-war the size of the stake won by any owner here was approximately £38. That was what a winning owner received, after the money for the second and third was taken out. I do not know whether most Deputies realise the expense entailed in keeping a horse, in paying a jockey and in paying a trainer at the present time. It costs approximately £4 a week to train a horse. That entails feeding him, attendance on him and paying stable lads and small incidental expenses. On top of that, entrance fees have to be met-jockeys' fees have to be paid and transport costs have to be undertaken, in order to bring the horse to a racecourse. Then the owner is faced with the possibility that the horse may meet with a slight injury or slight mishap, even before the race starts. But, given the ordinary circumstances in which the majority of horses brought to a meeting will complete, the owner is racing for a stake of approximately, when he wins it, £80 at the moment. So that even if an owner wins two races with one horse—and that is more than a good many horses do—there is a loss of £120 on the yearly keep of the horse.
That loss has to be made up by betting, or by some other means. As Deputy Ruttledge pointed out, the small owner endeavours to secure a good price on his horse and so win the keep and a little more. That leads to two undesirable happenings. One is that, if the horse loses the small owner loses more than he can afford and is worse off than previously. If he wins, everything is all right. It also leads to a number of owners doing what is called "pulling" their horses, in order to secure a good price. If other people get in before the owner gets his money on, the horse hardens in price and the owner is faced with either accepting a short price or not having a bet at all. Consequently, he has to stop the horse from winning. If that very often happens, it is bad for racing, as people take a very poor view of a horse being stopped, particularly if they are backing him. While that is not confined entirely to small owners, it hits the small owner more than the big one. I have seen a case of a big stable, a heavy betting stable, anxious to get a horse at a good price, and a small one in the know gets in before them, and the result is that they accept a smaller price or stop the horse. The Minister can imagine quite well that it is not prayers they say when they discover that someone else is in before them, and that the price has hardened. These people derive a livelihood out of racing and are depending on winning a reasonable stake, or one that at least will cover the running and training costs.
I believe the levy proposed to be derived under this Bill will assist racecourses, racing owners and executives, in so far as the stakes will be increased. The general improvement which will result therefrom is that races will be run better, that horses will complete on their merits and that there will be no interference by those who are anxious to obtain a good price. I would not like it to be taken from these remarks that every small owner stops a horse every time he finds someone else getting in before him. They are faced, however, with the difficulty that they have to make the race pay and if they do not win to-day they have to win some other day, unless they can sell the horse in the meantime.
Some of these small owners are anxious to sell the horse, when they win a race, particularly with 'chasers. Pre-war, these chasers were bought up mainly by buyers from England and exported to England. They made their name there in winning a large number of races or in winning one or two very big races. I hope that that will continue after the war. At the moment, there is an unfortunate ban operating between the two countries, under which a horse has to be a certain length of time in training here or in England before it can race, if it comes from the other country. I think that ban is unfortunate, as it militates against chasers being exported from here and, likewise, people who want to race horses here which were formerly trained in England are unable to do so, unless the horse has been six months trained in Ireland.
I do not know what shortsightedness operated to introduce that proposal, but the result of it has been that some very good horses left here last year and are now in the difficulty that they cannot race in either place. They were under six months in training in England and the ban operated to prevent them racing there and they were over six months out of Ireland, so they cannot race here. They fall between the two stools. If the Minister can assist in any way to get that ban lifted it would be an extremely good thing. It does not operate against a very large number of either owners or horses, but it causes a certain amount of friction: it is unnecessary and undesirable and may militate against the general trade afterwards.
I would like to say a word at this stage about the funds which the Minister hopes to derive. I do not propose to give an opinion as to a suitable rate, but I would recommend that very considerable care be taken before a rate is decided upon. It may be that it will not bear the ceiling which is put in the Bill. On the other hand, it may happen that, if a smaller rate is put on, it will be readily accepted, while if a higher rate were in operation more money would be derived. If the Minister consults his advisers, it should be possible to estimate approximately the most suitable rate.
There is, of course, the danger of diminishing returns operating, no matter what rate is put on but I think if the public and those connected with racing generally realise the benefits which should accrue, if this measure is universally accepted as being for the benefit of racing, that the levy is not a tax to benefit the Exchequer, that the funds to be derived will be put back into racing and breeding, and that it will assist racecourse executives to improve racing amenities, so much the better.
It has been mentioned that nobody in racing wants deck chairs, that nobody wants any extravagant degree of comfort. I quite agree, but, when going to the races, nobody wants to fall over a bicycle or have to push his way through a crowd in an endeavour to get in for the first race. Many people have that experience when there is a large crowd gathering for the races. There is one small gateway, perhaps, and even that is not leading into any particular enclosure. Everyone has to get through that small gate. The difficulty both for the officials and the public is extremely annoying, and it causes all kinds of friction. People's nerves get a bit frayed when they are in a hurry, and the officials get annoyed when they are flustered, with the result that when people get to the racecourse their minds are far away from the subject of getting the first winner.
I should like to refer to racecourse amenities. I was at a race meeting recently. I do not want to name the executive or the racecourse, because it is possible that the managements of racecourses are endeavouring to do their best in the circumstances. At this particular meeting the weather conditions were not too good. It was a very wet day, and the going was soft. There was one towel for all the jockeys to use. Every jockey riding at that race meeting—there was possibly an average of 20 horses in each race, and there were six or seven races—needed a wash afterwards. It was a muddy day, and yet there was only one towel in the jockey-room and one basin of water. Deputies can imagine the difficulties the jockeys had in washing themselves, taking off the mud, and all having to dry themselves with the one towel. That is no exaggeration. It has happened at a number of other racecourses. I will admit that the water supply in this particular instance broke down because of the frost, but, even if there was sufficient water, the jockeys would still be wet because of the lack of towels.
One of the most essential requirements of racing is that the amenities for jockeys, apprentices and stable boys should be adequate. Stable boys, a large number of them, travel long distances. They are up very early and have to attend the horses. They have to face a journey in the train, possibly a fairly arduous one, and horses are liable to become frightened in transit. The stable boys are faced with the difficulty of getting something to eat at a fairly cheap rate and they have to provide themselves with a wash and other necessary toilet arrangements. No provision is made by racing executives for stable lads, and the provision for jockeys is sometimes wholly inadequate. It is to be hoped this board will devote some of its funds to the improvement of amenities, not perhaps on a grandiose scale, but at least on a scale that will meet with the approval of jockeys and apprentices and those others who are dealing with horses.
As other Deputies mentioned, these apprentices are paid only a nominal wage, something very low on the scale. The duties of these lads are arduous. They have considerable responsibility. They are dealing with very valuable horses in many cases, and some better provision should be made for them. A number of them become successful jockeys, but there are others who, either through increasing weight or inability to ride efficiently or skilfully, never become fully-fledged jockeys. They are faced with the alternative of giving up racing or remaining as stable boys. Although trade union rates of wages are in operation, apprentices are not governed by any such regulations.
These lads are vital to the interests of racing, from a number of angles. One is that unless a trainer has trustworthy stable lads, the stable may get into the hands of unserupulous individuals. Information may go out, all kinds of interference may take place with the horses, and so far as the trainer and owner are concerned, the prices may be ruined by information getting out to the public and by the market being taken before they get in. While these matters are incidental to racing, and possibly not essential taken together they mean much in the proper and efficient working of racing establishments and it is very necessary that these people should be carefully considered.
I would like to draw the Minister's attention to the section of the Bill which deals with the admission of bookmakers and their assistants. I quite agree that bookmakers are absolutely essential to racing. The bookmakers here have contributed a good deal to racing over a long period. I would also like to express the view that unless racing is prosperous, bookmakers will not be prosperous. The argument that racing is prosperous at the moment is wholly useless. Let us consider the position racing was in ten years ago, when the executives and everyone else connected with racing were clamouring for Government intervention. Merely because it is prosperous at the moment is no reason for not taking adequate steps to deal with the situation and to endeavour to plan, in so far as State intervention can achieve it, that this industry will be prosperous after the war.
Section 25 (3) amends Section 3 of the Totalisator Act, 1929, and allows the racecourse executive, at the instigation of the board, to charge any particular figure. I think the Minister will agree that it is undesirable that bookmakers should be prevented from attending, if they conform adequately to the regulations, and it is possible that if the board or a member of it was sufficiently averse to a particular bookmakers, due possibly to some betting experience, he or they might operate this section to the detriment of the bookmaker. The Minister should consider submitting an amendment to re-insert the section of the 1929 Act or, at any rate, a ceiling should be put on what could be charged to bookmakers and their assistants when entering racecourses.
I come now to the question of the levy, perhaps the most important portion of the Bill so far as the public are concerned. I think the public and anyone connected with racing will readily accede to a charge when they see it is to be devoted to the benefit of racing and the improvement of racing amenities. Any of us who bet may have our own particular fancy either for a bookmaker or the Tote; but the vast majority of small bettors bet with the Tote, possibly because they are not particularly interested in having a chat with the bookmaker or getting a particularly attractive price. I think most people should be anxious to get as good a price as possible. At any rate, they accept the price which the Tote gives them, which is usually fairly lengthy odds; they feel more inclined to bet with the Tote and then take their stand somewhere in order to see the race. There are other people anxious to get a good price and they do not mind how they are buffeted about if they go to the bookmaker and they take a chance on seeing the race as best they can.
In betting with the Tote the people are paying a tax, but that particular aspect seldom enters their heads. If you ask people who bet with the Tote if they are paying a tax at the same time, they really do not seem to know whether they are or not. They think any deduction made is devoted to running expenses and other incidentals. The tax on Tote bets, the proceeds of which are devoted to racing, is 10 per cent. and it has been of considerable benefit. In conjunction with the Minister, I think that full tribute should be paid to the members of the Tote Board who, without any remuneration for a number of years and, particularly at the start when Tote operations were new in this country, when they ran the risk of failure and encountered all kinds of difficulties incidental to the early management of a scheme, operated the scheme successfully and reached the very high level of turnover which they show at present.
Ten per cent. is devoted to racing, and the commission set up in 1942 reported very favourably on the amount of money derived from Tote betting which increased considerably last year. I think the Minister's figure was that approximately £48,000 had been devoted from Tote betting to the provision of stakes, reduced transport of horses, and so on. I should like to correct Deputy Mrs. Redmond's impression that the Tote does not make any contribution to racing. The Tote has been one of the greatest contributors to racing in the last 10 or 12 years, and it is quite likely that but for the money derived from Tote bets, a number of smaller racing executives would have had either to reduce the number of their meetings in the year or abandon them entirely.
The Bill provides for a levy and the fund derived from it is to be devoted to increasing stakes, reducing entrance fees and reducing entrance charges to the public. If racing is to be continued here, the people who are beneficiaries under the Bill, or who will be the beneficiaries, must have a fairly adequate assurance that some reasonable remuneration will be available, and Deputy Briscoe is entirely wrong in his statement that the beneficiaries are not being asked to contribute anything.
The beneficiaries under this Bill are contributing. Each owner, each trainer and each member of the public who benefits by racing is contributing in entrance fees, in the payment of the charge into a race meeting and in other ways. The owner has to pay a very heavy sum in entrance fees, and then is faced with the prospect of winning a small stake. The biggest punters, as I have been reminded by Deputy Hughes, will possibly pay more than anybody else under the Bill, but these people are able to bet in a big way and the sympathy of the majority of race-goers is possibly not always with them, although they are very necessary to racing. If a person, however, is able to bet in sums as large as £100 or £500, the few pounds tax taken from him under the Bill is a very small amount compared with the amount he is able to wager, and I think such people might easily afford it in order that racing may be maintained successfully and properly.
For that reason, if the levy is administered properly and a suitable figure arrived at, and if the public appreciate fully the necessity for maintaining racing at the high level at which it has been maintained, I think they will willingly contribute and will not object to paying it, because if they are asked to pay a little extra in the form of a levy and if an equal reduction is made in the entrance charge, the result, so far as either the owners or the public are concerned, is the same, while racing has benefited.
The suggestion was made here that the fees derived by owners of sires should be taxed. A similar tax operated a number of years ago, but was withdrawn because a number of owners got rid of their horses, or brought them over to England. While the English owner might have been able to take his horse out of this country, the Irish owner was faced with selling him or allowing him to stand in England, and most people do not want to have their horses standing in England if they are living in this country. I want to resist strongly the suggestion that sires' fees should be taxed. It might equally be urged that a man who has a number of mares should be taxed on the profits he gets from the sale of yearlings or young horses.
If sires' fees are taxed, the result will be that good sires will leave the country. No later than last week two very good English horses came into this country and are to stand here. They are what might be described as first-class horses, or, if not quite first-class the next thing to it. These horses are a source of real benefit to this country. Irish owners will have an opportunity of using them and they will improve the standard of the stock, and if the owner is taxed on the fees, in addition to the ordinary taxes he has to pay, he will be forced to bring those horses back to England. In fact, since the war, a number of people in England who were paying income-tax on their earnings formed syndicates in order to avoid the tax and that has been detrimental to racing. A number of these wealthy people formed a syndicate in relation to a particular horse and auctioned his services at the highest price, or drew lots amongst themselves. Various poor classes of mares were sent to the horse, with the result that breeding is detrimentally affected.
This matter was discussed here before and the tax, which operated during the economic war, was withdrawn by the Government. I think the Government were quite wise in doing so, but, at that time, a couple of very good sires had left the country, and it was quite obvious that more sires were about to leave. While Deputy Fogarty appears to be under the misapprehension that these horses were taken out of the country because their owners did not like this country or had some bitterness against it, in one particular case, the owner was an Irishman who still has a large stud in this country. So far as I know, he has neither bitterness nor anything else against the country. His whole desire is to benefit racing and horse breeding here. He was forced, because of the tax on sires' fees, to bring his horse out of the country as he could not afford to keep him here, but, since the tax was taken off, he has had at his stud three sires. Surely that is an indication that the man did not want to bring his horse out of the country.
Most people interested in racing are interested from two angles: it is either their business, or they are able to afford it as a hobby; but whichever it is, they are a benefit to the country and I want to say that I deplore, as Deputy Ruttledge deplores, the references to the stewards of the Turf Club, the references to these horse owners and horse breeders who have raced horses in this country, some of whom have come from far away and have expended very large sums of money before deriving any benefit, who are maintaining not one large stud but a number of them in this country and who are employing large numbers of people at good rates of wages, buying the produce of the farmers and benefiting the country in every possible way.
I want to deplore the suggestion that these people should be victimised because they do not come within the definition of nationalism as given by Deputy Briscoe. I should be very slow to accept a definition of nationalism from Deputy Briscoe, and that is as far as I shall go in the matter. I think that nationalism is a term which is bandied about considerably not only here but elsewhere, and that a satisfactory definition of it is not available. I shall await some higher authority for a definition of it than the two Fianna Fáil Deputies who attempted to give the House one.
In conclusion, I want again to compliment the Minister, and to recommend the acceptation of the Bill to the House. I suggest to him that, if necessary, he should leave the Second Reading of the Bill to a free vote of the House to see if those who have endeavoured to misinterpret and misrepresent its provisions can influence the vast majority of Deputies who are not, perhaps, as well informed about racing as other Deputies may be. I look forward to the day when Irish horses, whether trained here or elsewhere, but at any rate bred in Ireland, will win races not only in England but in America and on the Continent, when once again we shall read in our newspapers graphic descriptions of the big successes of horses, with the addendum "bred in Ireland." The day is not far distant, I hope, when our horses will again act as ambassadors for this country, when our Army jumping team will be again going forth to win fresh triumphs, meeting and beating all-comers in every land. I am convinced that this Bill will assist racing and everything connected with it, and I heartily recommend it to the House.
