Q. WHAT’s worth €816 million to the Irish economy, accounts for 14,000 full-time jobs, and received a rise of €500,000 in Budget 2019?

A. The Irish sport horse industry, receiving €3 million.

Q. What’s worth €300 million to the Irish economy, accounts for 5,000 jobs, and received a Budget boost of €800,000?

A. The Irish Greyhound Racing sector, now receiving a total of €16.8 million.

At Thursday’s Budget 2019 press conference at Government Buildings, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed announced a rise of €600,000 for Horse Sport Ireland from the podium.

We duly published that figure on our website.

Forty-eight hours later, Department officials confirmed to this newspaper it was actually €100,000 less than that – the correct Budget 2019 amount is €500,000 – the same rise as allocated to HSI last year.

As per last year, some extra funding – an estimated €1.5 million will come into the industry via the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and will also filter down via Sport Ireland.

However, in the last 12 months, enormous work has been powering away at the Naas HQ of Horse Sport Ireland, putting all the structures in place to unlock the promise of more substantial funding.

CEO Ronan Murphy, new chair Joe Reynolds, and a new scaled-down professional board are all in place as per the Indecon Report’s recommendations.

There’s now been a baker’s dozen of reports completed on the Irish sport horse industry but all have one thing in common – they are all falling on deaf ears in the corridors of power.

Why is anyone’s guess at this stage.

The next time I’m asked why is it so many young Irish riders can only seem to carve out a successful career abroad instead of at home in the so-called Land of the Horse, I’ll have my answers ready – all 500,000 of them.