National Stud Bill, 1976: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Haughey

Before we adjourned I indicated that I divided our bloodstock breeding industry into three sections, production, selling and the racing side and I wanted to deal with the situation of the National Stud first of all in regard to production of our bloodstock.

The Survey Team on the Horse Breeding Industry made a number of specific recommendations on the National Stud. They made seven recommendations about the activities of the National Stud. The first recommendation is that there should be at least one prestige stallion standing at the National Stud. Secondly, the National Stud should be developed as a show place for Irish horses and Irish farming practices generally. Thirdly, the National Stud should run training courses for stud grooms and stud managers. Fourthly, there should be more contact between the National Stud and breeders generally and an annual field day is suggested as a means towards that end. Fifthly, the manager of the National Stud should be enabled to travel abroad in the off season to keep abreast of the latest techniques and practices. Sixthly, the National Stud should maintain close contact with international racing and breeding and a representative should attend all classic races in Ireland, England and France. Seventhly, the management of the board of the National Stud should be changed. They went on to indicate the manner in which the board should be changed.

We must all agree that all these recommendations have not been carried out. The premier recommendation that at least one prestige stallion should always be standing at the National Stud is very important. It has not been adhered to. The board of the National Stud should immediately prepare themselves to implement that recommendation. I would have hoped one of the principal reasons for bringing in this legislation now, increasing the capital of the National Stud and increasing their borrowing powers, would be to enable the board to carry out that recommendation. I was very disappointed the Minister did not indicate in his remarks that was one of the objectives of this legislation.

The second recommendation is that the National Stud should be developed as a show place for Irish horses and Irish farming practices generally. I do not think we could accept either that that recommendation has been carried out. The third recommendation is that the National Stud should run training courses for grooms and managers. Here we can pay tribute to the management of the National Stud. Over the past few years they have actively pursued a policy of helping out with training in different areas. They have undertaken courses for stud managers and grooms and so on. They have attempted to give a service in this area. My only complaint in that regard is that they have not gone far enough and they have not undertaken this educational training function as comprehensively and on as wide a basis as the situation demands. I would very strongly urge the board to expand their activities in that direction.

The National Stud can be of enormous value in the dissemination of technical information of even traditional knowledge and of good practices. One would like to visualise a situation in which the National Stud would be a showpiece to which everybody interested in the Irish horse would come at some stage of the year for a course, or lectures, or seminars, or something of that nature. The board have the right outlook in this regard. I would urge them to be a lot more imaginative and a lot more comprehensive in their approach.

Closely allied to that suggestion is the fourth recommendation of the survey team that the National Stud and breeders generally should have more contact and that there should be an annual field day. It is axiomatic that the National Stud should be the focus, the centre, the place to which breeders would come for information and where annual field days would be held. The Agricultural Institute have done marvellous work in that regard. They have adopted the annual field day and seminar technique as an essential part of their operations. The National Stud should do the same.

The fifth recommendation is that the manager of the National Stud should be enabled to travel abroad in the off season to keep abreast of the latest techniques and practices. Of course, that is absolute commonsense. Later on I want to say a bit more about the status of the manager. I am not sure to what extent that recommendation has been adhered to. I would hope that if it has not, it will be fully adhered to in the future and that not alone the manager but other members of the staff will be given the fullest possible facilities to travel and find out what is going on in other centres and to make sure our National Stud is on a par with any similar institution anywhere in the world. Our National Stud should be a leading centre in all the disciplines attached to the horse industry.

The sixth recommendation is that the National Stud should maintain close contact with international racing and breeding and that a representative of the stud should attend all classic races in Ireland, England and France. To some extent that is carried out, but there is scope for considerable expansion. I would hope all members of the board of the National Stud would regard it as their duty to be constant attenders at all race meetings and certainly the classic races in this country, and that to the greatest possible extent they would make sure the board and the management would be represented at leading races in England, France and elsewhere.

Bloodstock breeding and racing are now very much international activities. To a large extent this country, Britain, France and the United States are more or less a common market so far as bloodstock and racing are concerned. It is absolutely essential that every member of the board and the management should be fully informed on everything that is going on because, in the area of bloodstock breeding and racing, the situation changes from year to year. It is an annual business. Our National Stud should be fully informed and right up to date on what is happening two-year olds and three-year olds every year, and on what lines are coming up and what lines are going down, and so on.

The seventh recommendation is that the board of the National Stud should be changed along certain lines. My view is that the membership of the board is too small. I do not think anyone would wish to see a large, unwieldy and, to that extent, inefficient board of directors. Five is much too small a figure. The board of the National Stud should be able to represent totally all the interests in this area. It is impossible to do that with a board of five. When the Minister was bringing in this legislation and making a change it was absolutely idiotic that he should have repeated the original provision that the membership of the board shall be not less than three or more than five.

I suggest a board of seven or perhaps nine members is essential if they are to perform their functions adequately. The board should represent all the different interests in the bloodstock breeding world. They should be men of experience and judgment, men of standing and status, people respected for their knowledge and for their position in the bloodstock breeding world. I believe a board of reasonably extended membership is essential. Such a board doing their job properly would be fully involved in the policy of the National Stud, would have from time to time to take decisions as to what stallions should be bought or sold, and the wider the range of judgment and knowledge you could have in these decisions by the board the better. I am, therefore, going to table an amendment suggesting that the number of directors should be at least nine.

Another aspect is that I hope the Minister, whether himself or the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, will appoint people to the board who will be useful members of the board who will not be appointed for political or other reasons but will be appointed because of their knowledge, their qualities and their standing in the industry, men well equipped to be worthwhile and valuable members of the board. That is vitally important and I hope the Minister will not succumb to the temptation to appoint people who would be interested only in membership of the board as a personal status symbol. It would be disastrous if the Minister were to succumb to any temptation.

Mr. R. Ryan

Horses have no political allegiance, as far as I know.

Mr. Haughey

We hope not. I shall not say any more about the production side of things. A great deal could be said about the production of our bloodstock and the methods, techniques, research and information so essential to that production but that sort of discussion should properly take place on another occasion. The only thing I want to say about it is that the National Stud should not regard itself in any way as a remote, decorative institution, a place to which tourists can go and have a look around, a place to which distinguished visitors can be brought when the Department of Foreign Affairs cannot think of anywhere else to bring them. I would like the board of directors and the responsible Minister to look upon the National Stud as a driving force, a centre of activity, an example for the whole bloodstock breeding industry. It is not just a public monument and not just a nice national tourist centre. It should be looked upon as a real, live, active, driving force in every matter connected with the bloodstock breeding industry and, indeed, with the horse industry generally.

It is no good producing good bloodstock if you cannot sell it. This raises a very difficult and, indeed, almost an emotional question at the moment. We have had the unfortunate development where the attempt to provide one sales centre for Irish bloodstock unfortunately went awry and we now have two sales centres. We have a sales complex in Ballsbridge and another at Kill, both excellently designed and very well built. I am afraid I must say the obligations of the Government of the day, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, or the Minister for Lands, or whoever should have undertaken responsibility, were not discharged fully in this regard. This situation was allowed to develop. It needed some deus ex machina to step in and say: “We were going to have only one sales complex”, because that was all the country could sustain and the Government were the final arbiters and, if all the different interests involved could not agree, then the Government should have taken the decision. That should have been done by the Government. It was not done and it is now too late.

We have two complexes and I do not know whether, even at this late hour, anything can be done to resolve the situation. It is a vital matter to put our bloodstock on display in the best possible circumstances, mobilising the best possible selling resources we can and getting the best possible price, particularly for the small farmer breeder. As I say, I do not know whether at this late hour some rationalisation can be achieved. According to some people, the new selling complex should have been sited at the National Stud. It is too late to do that now. However, in the general context of this legislation I mention the fact that this is an outstanding problem which has not been resolved.

The third aspect of our bloodstock breeding industry is racing and everything indicates and dictates that we should have a good, sound racing industry. That is important from the point of view of breeding and from the point of view of the farming community. It is important from the point of view of our tourist industry and, indeed, important from every aspect at which one can look at it. The time has come when something should be done about racing. I am driven to that conclusion by a report published in Britain in 1968. It is not a Government report. It is a report made by a committee of inquiry set up in Britain by the joint turf authorities. It reported to these two bodies, not to the Government, and so the report cannot be dismissed on the basis that it was a Government interfering with private interests and with matters which should be the concern of private individuals. It was a report by racing itself, as it were, to the bodies in control of racing and the important recommendation it made was that a new statutory authority should be established to control and develop the racing industry. It went on to outline how that authority should be constituted and what its functions should be. The important thing is that the Jockey Club and the National Hunt Committee in Britain received that report from a committee set up by themselves, recommending that a new statutory authority should be established to control and develop the racing industry. Is that, I wonder, something we should consider here? It is very important that racing should be developed and tailored to meet modern conditions and circumstances. Is it any longer valid that this important industry, racing, should be controlled by a small, exclusive, self-perpetuating club, which is the situation at present? Is that type of body capable of meeting the challenges of today or should some new type of organisation be instituted? The National Hunt Committee have undoubtedly given great service down the years. They have succeeded in establishing very high standards of integrity in Irish racing, and one must acknowledge that they have carried out their functions in that way. But times change; circumstances change, and we are living in a very keen, competitive modern world. Racing has to meet many new problems, new challenges. Should we consider some new way of controlling and developing our racing industry?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Does racing not come under another Act?

Mr. Haughey

It is an absolutely integral part of the bloodstock breeding industry.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Is it not dealt with under another Act?

Mr. Haughey

Not specifically. Anyway, I shall not delay very much longer on it. I just want to pose again this question to the Minister, because it is one for him as Minister for Finance: should the racing industry continue to be controlled and administered by, as I say, an exclusive, self-perpetuating club, as it has been for well over a century now? Those are some of the things I wanted to say about the bloodstock breeding industry in general, and with your kind permission, I will now turn to the contents of the legislation itself.

I have already mentioned the question of the constitution of the board of directors and I ask the Minister to consider favourably an amendment which I intend to put down increasing the maximum number of directors to nine, because I think that is important. Allied closely to the question of the constitution of the board of directors is the question of the management structure of the National Stud. At present there is a very loose, old fashioned structure of management and control. There is a board of directors and under the board of directors is a stud manager. We are very fortunate indeed in that the present stud manager is probably the best man for that job that could be found today in Britain or Ireland or, indeed, the United States. However, is the structure of management correct? Is there a case for making him a managing director with a structure of management under him or should he not at least be a chief executive? The Minister in this Bill proposes to bring the manager of the National Stud within the ambit of the general provisions which are now applied to all semi-State bodies. His remuneration and so on will be subject to the consent of the Minister for the Public Service. As my colleague, Deputy Colley, pointed out, this practice is now being brought in for all State bodies, and I suppose it follows from the Devlin Report. The Devlin Report recommends that, as far as the remuneration of the chief executive is concerned, the National Stud should rank with Ceimicí Teoranta, the Pigs and Bacon Commission, CBF, the Racing Board and An Foras Forbartha.

I do not think I could quarrel very much with that. The only suggestion I want to make is that if the chief officer of the National Stud is to be brought within these provisions, then he should be given the same status as the chief officer of these other bodies with which the National Stud will now be grouped. It seems reasonable that he should be either a general manager or a chief executive, but my own personal wish is that he would be managing director.

It might be no harm here to mention to the Minister something that I believe has taken place since the Devlin Report was published, that is, that there is this absurd situation now, because of the provisions we have here in section 4, that in the case of many State organisations, the remuneration of the chief executive is controlled at a certain level, whereas the remuneration of persons working under him is not controlled. Very often there are in these State companies persons who are under the chief executive earning, and rightly so, salaries which are considerably in excess of the levels stipulated in the Devlin Report. That is just by way of general comment.

In the context also I would like to say a word about the annual report of the National Stud. I would not for a moment suggest that the National Stud should embark on the sort of status-seeking that other State-sponsored bodies go in for in producing the most elaborate, glossy annual reports, which very often perform more the function of gratification for the chief executive of the particular body rather than informing the general public. However, I think the National Stud errs in the other direction. The type of annual report which the National Stud have been producing for many years is totally inadequate, and certainly one would like to see much more statistical information contained in it. It would be of very great interest and value to members of the horse industry throughout the country if the annual report could become an informative statistical record. Certainly it should give much more detailed statistics of the performance of the stallions in the stud, but it could also meet a very big gap at present by serving as an annual year book for the bloodstock industry generally.

We used have a publication known as The Irish Horse which could be sent all over the world. That publication gave very valuable information and statistics concerning our bloodstock industry. It has ceased publication, probably for commercial reasons, but the National Stud in their annual report should give a lot more information which could become a very valuable guideline for the bloodstock breeding industry generally.

I should like to ask a question about the farm accounts and the running of the farm of the National Stud. I should like to make it clear that I believe the first duty of the National Stud is to run a first class top level bloodstock breeding centre.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 17 Jun 1976