State funding of the thoroughbred industry has been under attack for several years now, most recently from the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), which covets the proceeds of the 2% levy on betting.

There is no shortage of hyperbole and the popular narrative is that betting tax revenue – €90 million in 2021 and maybe €100 million this current year – goes entirely to the wealthy owners of winning racehorses who do not need the money, while legions of soccer players struggle along in the muck of the Irish winter.

What fair-minded person could object if the elderly billionaires’ champagne budgets were spent on Portakabins to shelter the street-clothes of young soccer players, left soaking in the pitch-side ditches of Ireland?

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin statement

Labour frontbencher, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who has been leading the charge and demanding that betting levy proceeds be diverted from racing to the beautiful game, asserted last week that “we’re sending players to a World Cup this summer who play in pathetic facilities week in, week out”.

The deputy is referring to the Irish women’s international team.

First-time qualifiers for the World Cup finals play Australia in Sydney on 20 July in the 82,000-capacity Stadium Australia.

The match is already a sell-out, but Irish captain, Katie McCabe, is used to playing before big crowds. On Monday evening, she led her Arsenal team in the European Cup semi-final before a full house of 61,000 at the magnificent Emirates Stadium in north London.

Katie trains at Arsenal’s Colney Centre in Hertfordshire, which cost £390m sterling and is one of the best-appointed training and medical facilities in world sport.

The Irish squad has yet to be finalised, but will consist almost entirely of women who play for top-tier professional teams, mainly in England. They all train, and play, in first-class surroundings. Only a few home-based players are fancied to get on the plane and they play for Shamrock Rovers, whose training grounds and stadium are acknowledged as the best in local football.

When the squad assembles in Ireland, they train at the 477-acre National Sports Centre in Abbotstown, which houses state-of-the-art facilities for a range of sports and the headquarters of the FAI, who will have noticed the well-appointed surroundings.

Aodhán’s complaint about ‘pathetic facilities’ for the Irish women’s team is ridiculous.

Not earmarked tax

Deputy Ó Ríordáin also asserts that “every cent of the betting levy goes into the Horse and Greyhound Fund”.

On this important point, he is again wide of the mark: he appears to believe that the levy on betting in Ireland is a hypothecated or earmarked tax, in which misapprehension he is not alone.

Many people seem to believe that there is some kind of automatic transfer of betting tax proceeds to the fund, which is then split 80/20 between Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and Greyhound Racing Ireland (GRI) – the latter formerly known as Bord na gCon.

The 80/20 split is indeed enshrined in legislation, but the revenue received has at times been less than what was allocated and more recently, it has exceeded disbursement.

In reality, the Horse and Greyhound Fund is a book entry in the accounts of the Department of Agriculture, a characteristic which it shares with the (far larger) Social Insurance Fund, a book entry in the accounts of the Department of Finance.

The 80/20 split is indeed enshrined in legislation, but the revenue received has at times been less than what was allocated

Revenues from employers’ and employees’ PRSI contributions are not ‘paid into’ an actual fund; they are treated as part of the general revenue, with expenditure decided independently each year in the budget.

The same is true of the betting levy: it is not an earmarked tax.

HRI does indeed pass on a substantial portion of its receipts from the Exchequer to racecourses, which use it to augment prize money. Other sources include owners’ contributions and sponsorship.

The HRI payments could just as readily be described as ‘grants to racecourses’ – and there might be less misunderstanding if they were. Are they too generous? If they all accrue to a small number of ‘billionaires’, whose horses always win, the case is made.

But the most publicly identifiable person who fits the lazy caricature, Ryanair’s Michael O’Leary, went on the public record in 2019 stating that racing was costing him money – a factor in the curtailment of his horse-racing interests – and it is documented that owners, as a group, are benefactors of racing, rather than the other way around.

The HRI payments could just as readily be described as ‘grants to racecourses’

Costs exceed receipts from prize money for the minority that own winners, and hundreds of horses in training never see a racecourse at all.

Total farm employment in Ireland is down to around 90,000. Of this total, roughly 10,000 full-time equivalents are attributable to the equine sector, spread around the country in areas where alternative opportunities are often scarce.

The Department of Agriculture will spend €2.13bn in sector supports during 2023, of which a less-than-proportionate share will go to HRI.