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Michael Creed TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, has launched a public consultation to assist the review of the structure of Horse Sport Ireland recommended in “Reaching New Heights”.

The Minister said, “I have long been conscious of the contribution of the sport horse industry to the Irish economy and how widely dispersed that contribution is across rural and urban Ireland alike. I have been equally conscious of the need for a coherent vision for how the sector might grow and develop and face the challenges of the future. Reaching New Heights’ draws together the great wealth of expertise of Horse Sport Ireland, Teagasc , the Royal Dublin Society and sets out a vision for the expansion and development of the sector over a period of years.”

Reaching New Heights, published by a committee drawn from experts in Horse Sport Ireland, Teagasc and the Royal Dublin Society in February 2015, sets down a vision for the development of the Sport Horse Sector.

The document contains 35 key recommendations on improving the quality of the Irish Sport Horse through better breeding, developing the education and training structure for the transfer of knowledge to breeders, improving the marketing and sales capacity across the industry, increasing participation of participants in the sector, progressing the health and welfare of horses and deepening the institutional capacity to deliver on the goals of the strategy.

Minister Creed noted the progress made to date in Implementing Reaching New Heights, such as the establishment of the new International Marketing Division in Horse Sport Ireland and the roll out of the Knowledge Transfer scheme to the equine sector.

Following a meeting with HSI yesterday, the Minister confirmed that he intends to chair a meeting of the implementation group in the Autumn to keep up the momentum around its implementation.

Reaching New Heights also recommends that a Government-sponsored, independent review should be undertaken of the structure of H.S.I. and where relevant, other organisations, to fulfil the ambitions set out in the report. The intention is to ensure that the industry is organised in the most effective manner to achieve the objectives set out in the Plan.

The Minister said he noted that Horse Sport Ireland has welcomed the review of the industry structure and indicated that while they have made considerable progress in the past decade in bringing the complex and disparate parts of the sector together, with 27 different organisations now affiliated to it, the time is opportune for the structure of the industry to be reviewed.
He continued, “The structures are complex and need to be reviewed to ensure they best serve the development of what can be a vibrant and growing industry. My department expects to be in a position to select a company to carry out the review in the next few weeks, and in the meantime it has invited submissions on these structures through a public consultation which will be made available to the successful tenderer to aid their work. I encourage all of those interested in this important sector to respond to this public consultation”

Note for Editors:

Further information including the Terms of Reference for prospective tenderers is available on
http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/customerservice/publicconsultations/