THE Minister for Agriculture is expected to address the thorny subject of the racing industry’s non-compliance with employment legislation when he speaks at the ITBA National Racing and Breeding Awards in Co Laois this evening.

A recent Labour Court decision held that training racehorses is not an agricultural activity and therefore employers cannot rely on exemptions from the Working Time Act when rostering stable staff for duty. This week the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association [IRTA] met with Horse Racing Ireland [HRI] officials to discuss how to progress the matter.

IRTA chief executive Michael Grassick said: “The meeting went well. We are looking to get back into agriculture as there is then more scope to seek derogations than if you are outside agriculture. We will also have to make a new agreement with stable staff. HRI is going to find out from the Labour Court when both we and the Irish Stablestaff Association [ISA] have to do to be recognised as representative bodies.”

Kildare TD Martin Heydon, who is very familiar with the racing industry, warned that regaining agricultural status will not be enough to solve this problem. “It’s quite a complex issue. A mistake was made in 2015 when racing was taken out of agriculture but now the Department of Enterprise and the Department of Social Protection, along with Agriculture, have a role to play in it.”

ISA chairman Bernard Caldwell said: “We will try to get this sorted out and, at the end of the day, stable staff should be better off. We will make changes to our association and our agreement with trainers if necessary. The main issue here is getting more time off for stable staff.”

*The ITBA National Racing & Breeding Awards will be streamed live from 10.15pm

Web: itba.ie