Powerful on-course bookmakers could now get a seat on the board of Horse Racing Ireland, the governing body of the industry in Ireland, which sends out a "very dangerous signal", it has been claimed.

Sinn Féin agriculture spokesman Martin Ferris said the Horse Racing Ireland Bill, which aimed to improve the horse racing industry, would give more control to the executive and dilute the power of industry bodies whose representatives are elected to the board by members.

Mr Ferris said the proposal to reduce the number of elected representatives on the HRI board and increase the number of ministerial appointments would allow “large corporate bookmaking companies to exercise control over Horse Racing Ireland, a semi-State company”.

He said many people would argue that vested interests in the bookmaking chains have a strong lobby and exercise considerable influence through Horse Racing Ireland and its connections.

Media rights

He said the change in structures for certain financial committees, including on media rights, would take power away from race courses and traditional industry bodies and would mean a move from three seats to five with two appointed by HRI who are not members of HRI.

Mr Ferris said that while he welcomed the all-Ireland approach including the appointment of a board member from the North, “ministerial appointments are seen on the basis of past experience as a form of cronyism and as political in nature”.

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney who introduced the Bill said the recommendation came from Indecon, an independent economic organisation.

“We are essentially moving from the Minister being able to appoint the chairperson, but nobody else, while the industry appointed other people as representatives of different parts of the industry, to now having three ministerial appointments to the board, albeit one of them will represent interests from Northern Ireland in terms of horse racing,” he said.

Levies

Labour TD

Willie Penrose

claimed HRI was “extracting money at an unacceptable rate” from horseowners and “got blood out of a turnip”.

He claimed there had been a drop in attendances at race meetings and said that was partly due to the amount of levies being imposed on horse owners by the HRI.

“The HRI acted disgracefully,” he said. “It has started to cut back on some of those practices now, but a bit late in the day. During the recession, the HRI was horrendous and had no feeling for ordinary punters or the small racehorse owners.”

Fianna Fáil TD John Browne called for the establishment of a fund through the governing body to compensate jockeys who got seriously injured. There had been a lot of fundraising for injured jockeys, he said, but an in-built fund "could compensate those injured jockeys who cannot return to racing".

Social Democrat TD Catherine Murphy added that the foal levy administered by the governing body, was very regressive.