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THE IRISH GREYHOUND Board (IGB) is looking to tender a contract worth an estimated €350,000 on a greyhound traceability database.
The system will cover the life cycle of greyhounds, in order to record and monitor them from their birth onwards.
It comes after a turbulent few months for the IGB following an RTÉ investigation which found that almost 6,000 greyhounds were killed for not racing fast enough.
There were calls for the government to cease providing funding to the IGB in the wake of the controversy, but it will receive €16.8 million next year under Budget 2020.
The IGB has since promised reforms, including tougher inspections and funding for injured greyhounds. The IGB also told TheJournal.ie that it strongly condemned the practices outlined in the Prime Time programme and said it represented “a minority within the industry”.
The traceability database will contain details of the greyhound sire and dam, the stud keeper and breeder. It will also keep track of whelping, when a greyhound is sold and who it’s sold to, its race history and when it’s retired from racing.
“At all times a report of what greyhounds should be present at a premises and registered by owner(s) at a premises should be capable of being produced,” the tender document says.
It’ll also pull data from numerous other sources including Irish Coursing Club (ICC) and the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB).
At the Oireachtas committee hearing last week, IGB chairman Frank Nyhan said it had initiated 31 separate investigations into issues including poor welfare in recent months.
Separately, the IGB had introduced a dedicated care and welfare officer.
On the new traceability system, he said: “When implemented, the system will allow the whereabouts of a racing greyhound to be monitored by the Irish Greyhound Board throughout its life stages, including birth, registration, racing career, changes of ownership and location, and end of life.”
Legislation enabling the set up of a database was brought in in May with the Greyhound Racing Act 2019
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This country is sinking in debt and us the taxpayers are fed up.
@James: Does this include Eamon Ryan’s “special appointment” Cara Augustenborg? She’s doing some amount of posting photos from fancy hotels on social media. Wonder if these are going down as expenses?
Great. More tax
@Shaun Gallagher: Green policies cost I’m afraid. We can try and ignore climate change but it won’t save us from the inevitable economic crash that will follow increased temperatures
@Mickety Dee: Green policies, what does that mean exactly? More tax on fuel when there are no alternatives will not save the planet.
@Mickety Dee: increased temperatures will have very little direct effect on ireland or Irelands economy. The effect it may have on the world wide economy is a different matter but since no matter what we do will have any impact on climate change then we should be the last people to make the changes not the first. It’s like two people at the top of a cliff looking at doing a dive, one says you go first I’ll follow, first person jumps and splats on a hidden rock under the water, ends up paralysed for the rest of their life. The second person looks on and says nah, I’ve changed my mind and decides to walk down to a much lower level on a different part of the cliff that they know to be safe and then jumps.
Our government are so eager to be seen to be best in class we are foolishly handing over energy security, driving up costs of homes with rolls Royce building regs for every new home meaning most can’t afford them, on the verge of handing over food security by destroying our aggri sector. We are jumping off that cliff recklessly for no discernable benefit
@Anthony Guinnessy: I think you’ll find the Irish economy is heavily correlated with the world economy. We are a long way from leaders in green policies and even then way behind on targets.
@Steve: An example would be subsidies on wind energy which translates into a tax on your electricity bill. Without subsidies and carbon tax there would be no wind generation on the island. The same would apply to recycling. It is still far cheaper to extract raw materials than recycle them.
It does seem crazy. Just six years ago the doors were thrown open on dairy sector deregulation which drove up investment and quotas and flattened prices. How was the ‘green’ impact of that decision not factored in at the time? Simon Coveney has questions to answer about wildly contradictory policy
@Eoin Roche: there is no plan or long term strategy that planning must align with. There are lobby groups who get what they ask for and over time we end up with a patchwork quilt of lobby appeasing policies that are fit for nothing. We get rid of sugar beet production and increase our dairy herd. Its mind boggling how short term and self serving (for a few) that we have allowed our system to become.
I for one am in favour of the jobs the comet will create.
Irelands headlong dash to be first to the climate action post at all costs no matter who it hurts will have very serious consequences for the economy and future generations
The Irish government practice of showboating on the world stage continues, and we, the people are the ones to suffer.
@Ciaran Maher: yep well said
@Ciaran Maher: yep showboating aptly described it
@Ciaran Maher: Are you really suffering? Doubt it. And certainly not as much as people who live in the areas directly impacted by climate change.
@Paul Whitehead: And these measures will relieve their plight, while China builds more coal fired power stations every week.
have your say