STABLE staff will continue to have a representative on the board of Horse Racing Ireland, despite an independent recommendation to the contrary.

The long awaited Horse Racing Ireland Bill 2015 was published on Thursday and it details the proposed new make-up of the board.

As recommended in the Indecon Report, the membership of the new board is set to consist of 13 people, with a chairman appointed by the Minister for Agriculture.

The Turf Club representation is set to reduce from five to three members, with three members also being appointed directly by the Minister – one of whom will be from Northern Ireland, and two representing staff.

Owners, trainers, breeders, racecourses and the betting industry will all have one member each.

Bernard Caldwell, chairman of the Irish Stablestaff Assoication, welcomed the news. “It’s great that we have retained our seat. Indecon suggested that stable staff shoud only be represented on an industry services committee but when we put our views to the Joint Oireachtas Committee reviewing the legislation they listened to us and recommended to the Minister that we be reinstated to the Board.”

The Bill will go before the Dail and Seanad in the coming months.

The purpose of this Bill is to strengthen governance and transparency within the administration of racing, improve accountability and control over state funding in the sector, clarify the respective functions of HRI and the Turf Club, and provide for streamlining of certain administrative functions.

Amendments can be tabled as the Bill passes through various stages in both houses before it is passed into law. Intensive lobbying on a number of aspects of the Bill has been carried out.

The Bill was one of the first pieces of legislation to go through a new process of pre-legislative scrutiny when many stakeholders went before the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Fine Gael TD for Kildare South Martin Heydon, a member of that Committee, said: “One of the changes I fought for was the specific inclusion of a representative from stable staff on the board to recognise the vital contribution that the thousands of stable staff all over the country make to the industry that is worth so much to our economy.”