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.