GRAVE concerns over the status of 2024 foal passports was raised at a joint committee meeting on Agriculture, Food and the Marine in Daíl Eireann on Wednesday evening.

Affiliates of Horse Sport Ireland (HSI) met the committee to discuss the challenges facing the horse sport industry in Ireland. Deputy Joe Flaherty TD addressed his concerns over the delay in foal passports to the committee, saying he received feedback that the situation has deteriorated further, there is “an absolute breakdown in delivery” of passports this year, despite the implementation of a new online system.

Showjumping Ireland was represented by chairman Christy Murphy, vice chair Dessie McFadden and chair of the Management and Finance committee, Ronan Corrigan.

The RDS was represented by Deputy chief executive and Dublin Horse Show director Pat Hanly, chair of the Equestrian committee, Lt Col Tom Freyne and member of the trustee council, Flor Madden.

Chair of the Irish Draught Horse Breeders Association (IDHBA) Robert Draper was joined by Amanda Fahey, while the Equestrian Competition Venues Owners Alliance (ECVOA) was represented by Robert Fagan (Mullingar EC), Chris Byrne (CoilÓg EC, remotely) and group co-ordinator Pat McCartan.

Deputy Flaherty said: “The organisation got €600,000 in Brexit funding to implement a new passport strategy. There is a legal requirement if you sell a foal that you must have a passport at the sale. My understanding is that one of the most recent sales, anything north of 60 of the foals presented for sales didn’t have a passport. I have emails from one owner here this morning, who says he has sold this foal to the UK and it’s still awaiting a passport.”

Robert Fagan confirmed that, on Tuesday, he received a legal document from the Department of Agriculture to say it is illegal to have any animal on the premises without a passport. “So, in essence, you can’t run the sale of young horses,” he said.

Irony

Flaherty added: “We have an irony here in the Department of Agriculture has given €600,000 in Brexit funding to Horse Sport Ireland to administer and process passports, and at the same time, it’s writing to the sales venues and telling them that they can’t process the sale of foals unless they have a passport. The market is breaking down.

“I’m extremely disappointed that the Department of Agriculture hasn’t sat up and taken notice of what this committee is saying in relation to Horse Sport Ireland.

“I’ll be asking, and hoping my colleagues will support me, in a request that the department appoints an independent auditor immediately to review operations at HSI, because we simply cannot allow it unfold in the manner that it is at the moment.”

Robert Draper added that the IDHBA is worried about the “efficiency and accuracy” of the passport system and said “all our members are seeing delays across the board, and that’s probably our number one issue that we’re dealing with in calls from our membership.”

Flor Madden added: “There was a foal sale last week and, from my figures, there were 88 foals presented for sale on that day, 16 had passports. For those who have been in a position to sell, the money which they’ve got for those foals, they cannot receive until the passport situation is resolved.”

The committee heard that up to seven staff members have left the passport department at Horse Sport Ireland in recent weeks. HSI told The Irish Field that figure is not true. However, we understand that some staff, including the manager, have left and a new manager is due to start next week.

Horse Sport Ireland issues defence over passport processing

In response to the above, Horse Sport Ireland said: “Firstly, we would like to thank breeders for their uptake of the new Horse Source system since mid-July. There has been a phenomenal adoption level and it has surpassed even our own expectations – it shows that our customers have embraced the digital passport solution. Horse Sport Ireland are also delighted to have received an Innovation Award for the HorseSource.ie platform from Enterprise Ireland at the recent National Ploughing Championships, and the platform has also been shortlisted in the upcoming Public Sector Digital Transformation Awards, run by the Business Post.”

Asked how many foal passports are currently outstanding for 2024, a HSI spokesperson said: “We have received 4,481 applications for passports since mid-July. To put that number in context, that equates to 73.5% of the entire volume of passport applications compared to 2023, received in a very short period. As of the end of last week, all DNA kits had been issued to those applicants.

“At present, 49% of passport applicants (2,201) have not yet returned any DNA samples. That means that these 2,201 applications cannot yet be processed. Almost 600 passports have been issued to date. We have 780 applications on hand that are currently in process, with DNA testing recently completed - these will be issued over the next two weeks, after validation checks are completed. Customers are advised, that even with the e-passport system, there is still a paper passport, which differs only slightly from non e-passport generated passports.

“The remaining applications are currently in the DNA system which, as we had indicated to breeders, takes 19 working days – ie four weeks – to complete.”

Asked how many foal passports are currently outstanding for 2023, HSI said: “In 2023, 6,102 passport applications were received by HSI, of which 6,022 have been sent out to breeders. The remaining 80 currently are being processed and each of these cases have been reviewed. HSI is awaiting confirmation regarding DNA on these applications. We are issuing passports as partial pedigree or no pedigree recorded, where no correspondence has been received from breeders regarding outstanding information or required DNA samples. A small number of these applications are DNA/microchip errors and we are working with the breeders in question to resolve these issues.

“We understand that breeders have concerns over foals for the upcoming sales season, but we assure them that the team in HSI are working extremely hard to process these applications in as timely a manner as possible. Breeders can log onto HorseSource.ie to check the up to date status of their applications, and customers are also encouraged to check out the many ‘how to’ videos, if they have any difficulties in the first instance.”

Further reports from the committee meeting will appear in next week’s paper.