Budget 2013

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Cantoris

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Today is Ireland's budget 2013. At the last minute, the ministries for Social Protection and Health got a reprive and circa €150 million was put back into their budgets. Apparently they found it elsewhere. I have a feeling the racing fund may be hit. More to follow I'm sure.
 
How long are they going to talk about it for ?

<H1>Irish budget cuts racing funding by €1 million
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By Tony O'Hehir 7:04PM 5 DEC 2012
THE allocation to the Horse and Greyhound Fund in 2013 has been cut from €56.29 million to €55m, it was announced on Wednesday by the Irish government, with the horseracing industry's allocation reduced by €1m.
The drop in in funding, to €44m from €45.03m, was revealed in the annual budget, and 2013 will witness the allocation of funds to the industry reduced for a fifth consecutive year.
Reacting to the budget announcement on Wednesday night, Brian Kavanagh, chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland, said: "We are disappointed to see a further reduction in funding for the fifth year running, but I suppose that it was inevitable in view of the general economic climate.
"In 2008 the funding for the horseracing industry amounted to €61 million, and that has now fallen by 28 per cent to €44 million for next year."
Following the announcement, further cutbacks by HRI will be inevitable.
Kavanagh added: "We will have to discuss the implications for our own budget for next year. The latest reduction in funding emphasises again how important it is to find a long-term method of secure funding for the industry. We are working on an ongoing basis with government to try to bring that situation about."
It is hoped that the Betting Amendment Bill, which is being processed and which will target securing much needed revenue from exchange and offshore betting, will contribute to a better funding arrangement for the industry.
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A million is not as bad as I thought it would be. It might force HRI to get more efficient. I was registering a lease agreement recently and they sent it back to me saying it wasn't in their standard format. I filled out half their form (all of this info was in the first few lines of my lease agreement) and told them to refer to the lease agreement. They could have saved themselves the time to write the letter, the cost of the post and labour. But why be efficient!!
 
Legislation to facilitate the taxation of offshore betting will be in place by the end of February but horse racing will not be in a position to fund itself directly as a result.
The aspiration for horse racing chiefs was that the industry could become self-sufficient by funding itself through money earned directly from taxation of bets placed on races.

Speaking at yesterday’s Horse Racing Ireland Awards in Leopardstown, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney said the Department of Finance was unlikely to sanction such a scenario.

Mr Coveney did declare that he would be in a better position to ask for increased funding for racing once the revenue streams had increased by virtue of the new legislation.

He did add a proviso though, warning that the industry would have to support the reforms he intends to push through if they wanted him to continue working on its behalf.

"I, like others, have been impatient to see the new legislation from the Finance Department but I am in a position to announce that we will see that in place by the end of February and that will see new revenue streams in place" said Coveney.

"Because there are new revenue streams does not mean that racing will be entitled to that. The Finance Department is slow to ringfence funding for anyone but it will make it easier for me to fight for greater funding.

"In return, I am asking the industry to support changes to the structure of racing. I will be insisting on the reform programme. That’s the deal."

The minister said he would be looking for racing to be given a multi-annual budget in time, so that the industry could plan further ahead into the future.

He also announced that Joe Keeling would succeed Denis Brosnan as chairman of HRI, while Matt Dempsey would take over from Lady O’Reilly as chairman of the Irish National Stud.
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I'm not sure about Coveney. His arse is constantly kissed but all racing gets is a pat on the head. (a bit like Irelands relationship with the EU) He has delivered jack ****.
 
In light of burger gate is the rest of the Country, not just racing people, now going to see what an ineffective light weight Coveney is ?
 
Sheikh said:
In light of burger gate is the rest of the Country, not just racing people, now going to see what an ineffective light weight Coveney is ?
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In fairness, it was the Irish authorities that found the problem rather than in other recent scares where foreign authorities have found the issues. I think the Irish authorities will come out of this reasonably well, unless they have missed this a lot in the past. More needs to come out before assessment can be made.
 
Mr Coveney said: " Like everybody else I think they want to get to the bottom of how horsemeat got into a beefburger, even though that was not Burger King product, and I think it is important to emphasise that.

"It was in a different category, it was frozen burgers, it was not Burger King burgers.

"Even so, Burger King have said they are sourcing from elsewhere for the moment, but they also encouragingly said that they want to source beef from Ireland."
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This has already gone on too long.That seems to be what happens when Coveney is on the case. It needs to be knocked on the head. He talks as if he is an observer not the fella where the books stops.
 
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