Speaking to another full house at Hotel Kilkenny, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, said he had learned a lot from the previous meeting at Trim and was impressed by the passion in the sector.

However he added that the industry participants needed to focus minds and set bench marks.

“The sport horse industry is underestimated in Ireland. It is worth €700m and could be worth double, but we must have a plan in place to get us there,” he said.

Minister Coveney confirmed the need to end “the madness of green and white books” and reiterated the importance of having a central database.

Many of the points made at the workshop-style meeting duplicated those from the previous week but one that generated the biggest debate was the subject of culling. Speaking on behalf of one table, former MEP Avril Doyle received a round of applause when she said: “One point we all agreed on is the need for a culling scheme. We need to bite the bullet. There should be an amnesty for those whose passports prevent them from entering the food chain, so that animals can be humanely euthanased and disposed of.”

However Minister Coveney insisted afterwards that unless a horse was micro-chipped within the first six months or end of the calendar year of its birth, it could not go into the food chain.

The Minister spoke passionately about welfare and said he would be “strongly supportive” of resources for animals that are welfare compromised. Nonetheless he insisted that he was not supportive “of a scheme for culling animals just because people cannot make a profit out of them.”

Speaking to The Irish Field last night, Horse Sport Ireland chairman Professor Pat Wall said people had to decide whether funding received by the sport horse industry should be better spent on a cull scheme or developing the other end of the market.

“We’re not going to get a heap of money and people need to decide if the limited resources we have should be spent at one end of the supply chain or the other,” said Wall. “The Minister said to show him a roadmap to success and he would consider funding it,” added the HSI chairman. “But a cull scheme is dead money.”

“HSI gets €3.3m so one has to ask: Is taxpayers’ money being wisely spent to develop a commercially viable industry? The raw ingredient is key to getting a marketable final product so a radical restructuring of our breeding programme is required. Our competitor studbooks are now standing still,” he said.

Summing up, Minister Coveney again pledged his support to the industry by saying: “I have a political responsibility to the thoroughbred sector and promote it as much as possible on trade missions. I am now trying to focus and support the sport horse industry more.”

The Minister was due to attend the third meeting in the series in Carrigaline, Co Cork last night.