MINISTER Martin Heydon said he is “satisfied” that Horse Sport Ireland has ironed out the “massive delays” in issuing passports that occured last year so far in 2025.

Speaking in front of the Oireachtas Agricultural Committee on Wednesday, the Minister said: “The significant issues with passports being issued for sport horses, particularly last year, was a really big cause of concern. There were delays. There was a new computer system [Horse Source] that came in. I was very frustrated with what was happening there. There was a lot of people whose business model was to breed those horses and they needed to sell on those horses and didn’t have the opportunity to do so, because they couldn’t without the passport. And when that happens, that is a big cause of concern.

“Horse Sport Ireland is not a semi-state body like Horse Racing Ireland, but it does derive a significant amount of income from us [DAFM] for breeding grants, so therefore we had very close engagement with them on it and worked with them in terms of trying to address the issues that were there. I’m happy to say there’s much less issues on the passport side now. And that is really, really important because when entities have a responsibility like that, it is incumbent on them to deliver those passports in a timely fashion, or else it impacts the whole system and the ecosystem of the sales.”

The Minister was responding to a question from Fine Gael Senator Paraic Brady, who said the wait on the passports at this moment in time has increased. In the latest update on November 7th, Horse Sport Ireland had received 5,494 passport applications and issued 3,513 completed applications.

Of the 5,494, some 5,465 pedigree applications have had their foal kit sent to the applicant, with the remainder to be issued imminently. 1,049 foal kits had not yet been returned from breeders to HSI for pedigree applications.

Of the 4,416 applications who have returned their foal kits to HSI, 3,513 have been completed and the passport issued and 285 are currently undergoing quality control checks, while the remaining 618 applications’ DNA samples are currently with the laboratory for analysis.