“There are lots of different sports within the sector that are very different to each other. Let’s wait and see what comes back from the recommendations,” he cautioned.

“Clearly there is a need, in terms of breeding programmes, that everyone should be buying into the same philosophy to encourage people to breed in a more targeted way,” he added.

“Whether Show Jumping Ireland and Horse Sport Ireland and some of the other organisations are pulling in different directions, I’m not sure I’m qualified to make a comment on that right now but certainly, we need them all to be operating to the same plan,” he maintained.

The division of the sport horse industry across two separate Government departments has been raised on several occasions and is an issue that Minister Coveney intends to address.

“Minister Varadkar and Michael Ring’s Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport is very much focused on sport and improving Ireland’s competitive performance. My focus is on breeding and quality and that’s where my money has been focused,” he said.

“Minister Varadkar and I need to sit down and talk about co-coordinating our efforts in a more targeted way or else looking at whether there should be one department in the same way as there is for horse racing. However we need to have that political discussion before we make any decision,” he added.

On the possibility of a marketing body like Irish Thoroughbred Marketing (ITM), the Minister said: “ITM is supported by a levy on the thoroughbred industry but I know that people in the sport horse industry will tell me that’s all well and good but it also gets €45m in prize money and other supports. The truth is we do need a marketing body in the sport horse sector and HSI has to find a way to create that and fund it. They need to talk to me about that and probably to Minister Varadkar’s department as well.”

Minister Coveney added that he wanted policies to reward breeders for good decisions.

“We need to find ways of rewarding people for breeding from good mares. There were some sensible suggestions, I think, around having mare-only competitions that would perhaps have better prize money than other competitions,” he said.