Vol. 550 No. 5
94 Dr. Upton asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the steps he has taken to assist the Cherry Orchard Equine Centre in finding the additional ?400,000 needed for this project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9608/02]
The provisions of the Control of Horses Act, 1996, allow for grant assistance to be given by my Department towards the costs incurred by a local authority in implementing the Act. This can be taken to encompass local authority involvement in and support for a horse project, where the local authority considers such involvement and support to be an integral part of its implementation of the Act within its functional area. My Department has already provided, via the relevant local authority, grant support of €2.4 million since 1997 to the Cherry Orchard Horse Project. That project is by a very considerable margin the horse project which has received most funding from my Department.
Where horse projects are concerned, funding is oriented towards capital costs, whereas I understand that the additional funding sought in this instance by the Cherry Orchard project relates essentially to current, running costs. Dublin Corporation, which is the local authority concerned, has explicitly accepted that the provision by my Department of financial support towards the capital costs does not commit the Department to meeting running costs. In this regard, any degree of reliance on the part of any horse project on funding from my Department in order to meet its running costs would be unsatisfactory from its own perspective, not least because the indefinite continuance of such funding cannot be guaranteed.
The funds available to my Department to assist local authorities in their implementation of the Control of Horses Act are, in any given year, limited. In the current year, such funds are of the order of €2.5 million. My Department must from within such a sum endeavour to meet demands from many local authorities throughout the country. Those involved in the Cherry Orchard project have already been informally advised that my Department is not in a position to provide the additional funding now sought.
