HORSE Sport Ireland came before the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food on Wednesday, when CEO Denis Duggan, COO Avalon Everett and Head of Breeding, Innovation and Development Dr Sonia Egan answered questions about passports, equine traceability, human resource issues and the newly introduced high-performance levy.

Duggan began by reflecting on the transition to Horsesource, the online e-passporting system, and how its performance and turnaround times have improved. He emphasised that HSI aims to further increase breeders’ use of the online system by incentivising them through cost.

Responding to William Aird’s questions about processing time, Duggan said: “We control about 11 days of the process and, after that, everything else is outside of our control.” He repeated several times that HSI are printing and issuing passports within eight days of receiving the necessary information back from the lab.

In reply to Senator Paul Daly’s questions concerning the introduction of the new high-performance levy, Duggan confirmed it will be used to generate the 20% investment that HSI is required to raise to match the 80% provided by Sport Ireland, and that this money will be used solely to fund HSI’s high-performance programmes and Olympic teams.

Everett, offered further context by explaining that the levy was introduced to create a more consistent funding model. She said it aimed to solve the problem of the “irregular and inconsistent level of funding we were getting from our affiliate partners”. She also pointed out that the cost of Olympic participation will increase due to the expense of bringing horses to LA and Brisbane.

Mayo TD Paul Lawless mentioned “multiple issues in terms of employees” and asked Duggan “what has this cost the organisation?” Duggan’s answer was “zero”. When pressed further by Lawless, Duggan said: “we have had a number of legacy issues that have had to be resolved”. He added “there’s been staff change and change of direction over time, and all of those things do come with HR costs” but he maintained there have been “zero legal fees”. Sinn Fein TD Natasha Newsome Drennan pursued a similar line of enquiry, asking Duggan about a “six-figure sum on a Labour Court issue”, to which he replied “We’ve had no Labour Court issues”.

Asked to elaborate on these matters a HSI spokesman said: “While a number of HR-related claims involving former staff were active or concluded during that timeframe, the associated legal fees and any settlement payments did not accrue to HSI. These matters were managed through the organisation’s insured risk management framework and did not give rise to any expenditure by HSI.

“Any HR related cases that remain extant have their roots in issues from more than three years ago.”