I refer to your email regarding the RT Investigates programme on the greyhound industry.

RT stands over its coverage of the industry and to the extent you refer to the RT Investigates programme - it was a comprehensive, factual investigation into practices in the industry.

Firstly, RT has received a number of emails regarding the programme and a number of these are copy & paste emails raising precisely the same issues with the same wording. There are further emails raising some other questions about the programme.

Therefore, RT is responding to these emails by addressing the main questions raised:

Reference to EPO

You mention the reference to EPO by Finbarr Heslin who was interviewed in the programme and question why he did not report EPO if he found it in dogs.

During the interview he stated:

Anybody involved in the industry knows there is a drugs problem in the industry.

The programme dealt with this aspect as follows:

With regard to doping the programme never suggested that everyone involved in the sport is engaged in doping it did detail the substances recovered from raids by the Department of Agriculture Special Investigations Unit; it did reference court cases; it did include the views of Tony Walsh, Chairman of the Greyhound Owners and Breeders Association expressing his concerns at doping in the industry and it referenced the fact that the IGB asked UK expert Professor Tim Morris to examine doping 4 years ago.

He reported there were longstanding and significant deficiencies in policies, processes and their implementation to deal with this issue.

With regard to EPO Mr. Heslin stated:

We see the long-term negative effect of a lot of these drugs on these dogs and when we see dogs who come in and theyve had so much EPO pumped into them that their blood is like treacle.

It was quite clear that he was talking about the long-term legacy in dogs he has seen, i.e, dogs who historically were subject to EPO.

For the record, Mr. Finbarr Heslin is recognised as specialising in the care and treatment of greyhounds. He graduated from UCD in 1993. He campaigned for years for legislative change with a particular focus on the plight of Irish greyhounds in Spain.

He was Consultant Veterinary Surgeon for the ISPCA for a number of years and has appeared as an expert witness in courts in many cruelty cases. In 2005 he was appointed by the Government to chair a working group on dog production and puppy farms in Ireland and the findings of that group formed the basis of the 2010 Dog Breeding Establishment Bill. He was also involved in helping to draft the Mircochipping of Dogs Act 2015.

In the course of the programme he spoke directly about the conditions of greyhounds examined by him in his professional capacity. It was entirely factual, clinical based evidence. RT is totally satisfied that his established expertise in this area was entirely appropriate for his inclusion.

Unaccounted for dogs

RT reported that the study commissioned and paid for, at a cost of over 115,000, by the Irish Greyhound Board concluded that around 16,000 greyhounds are born each year but at an early stage thousands vanish from the record books. And of those who survive long enough to be registered to race 5,987 are killed simply because they are not fast enough. They are the findings of the report commissioned by the Irish Greyhound Board.

The Knackeries footage

A fixed camera was put in place adjacent to the knackery in question. The camera was in situ for twelve days. When the camera was retrieved the footage was checked by the programme team. It was only at that point the team discovered four dogs had been brought to the knackery and killed.

The matter was reported to the Department of Agriculture, the body with responsibility for knackeries and the appropriate body to investigate alleged breaches of the knackery licence.

Racing Life of a greyhound

In relation to a dogs racing career the programme stated: Typically, a dogs racing career lasts just seven months.

That figure of 7 months came from the IGB's own report compiled by Preferred Results Ltd. The company analysed the racing dog pool for the period 2013 to 2015. This covered all dogs and looked at the turnover and replenishment rates. It looked at an average dog pool at the start of each year, the number of new entrants, the number exiting the racing pool and the closing figure for the end of the year. It found the average time in active dog racing pool for ach dog was 6.92 months.

It summarised it as follows (Powerpoint presentation which is now available on the IGB website on page 12 of 94):

EXTERNAL LINK

"The stand-out figure is the number of Dog Pool rotations per year which averages 1.73 which means that on average the Dog Pool is rotated in under 7 months.
"Given that greyhounds can race until they are 6 and even 7 years of age an average
racing life of under 7 months is impacting"
It is important to note that this is an average and as pointed out above, our reporter stated the 7 months was typical. A small number of successful dogs would race for longer.

Footage of abuses/cruelty abroad
This footage was used because the Investigates team clearly showed that Irish greyhounds are being exported via the UK to countries in Asia where these practices take place.
In summary, RT notes that the Government announced after the programme that investigations will now follow with a view to securing prosecutions where possible.
RT believes the programme complied fully with all the relevant statutory and regulatory Codes and served the public interest.
If any member of the public is of the opinion that a programme or segment of a programme broadcast on RT has breached a provision of Section 39(1)(a), (b), (d) or (e) of the Broadcasting Act 2009 or failed to comply with a provision of the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Codes and is not satisfied with RTɒs response they are entitled to make a complaint to the BAI. Submissions to the BAI should be made within 14 days of receipt of the reply from RT. Information on codes and on the complaints procedure can be found on the BAI website at EXTERNAL LINK
Yours Sincerely
Paul Maguire
Editor
RT Investigations Unit

So it begs the question, why a drug that hasn't been seen in the last 14 years is relevant to Greyhound racing in 2019. If Finbarr is currently witnessing Greyhounds that were administered the drug, perhaps these 16+ Year old Greyhounds have discovered the secret to extending life. Surely RTE were not just dragging up every negative story they could find in their archives over the past decades, to cause maximum damage in the public perception, in an attempt to end Greyhound racing in Ireland?
Maybe in our next email to RTE we could add, why a fully paid up affiliated open coursing club founded in 1950 & coursing on Whiddy Island since that date was portrayed as illegal coursing EXTERNAL LINK

The mis-interpretation as to a Greyhounds career is 7 months, derived from "that" report that said the Irish racing Greyhound pool turnover was a Average approx. 7 Months. Indicates their ignorance of the Irish sport, where dogs are sold on mainly to the UK, after relatively short time of their full racing career. It clearly accounts for many of the "missing"

Below is an article by the Editor which gives his view of some of the points raised in the programme which I have copied and pasted (I trust that is within the rules)

*****************************************************************

While for most part the findings of the analysis raises serious issues, on the other hand nothing was identified which could not be fixed and there is every reason to believe that IGB could, within a short number of years, become a financially viable entity drugs free and with an impeccable record on animal welfare. The future now depends on the choices made by the organisation

Recognise the quote? It is taken from the executive summary of the report used to flail the Irish greyhound industry in last weeks RTE report. Obviously (!) it wasnt used in the programme.

I hadnt read the report when I ran the Editors Chair last week which was written before the programme was broadcast. I have now read the report, and quite honestly, I am staggered by its ineptitude.

For a start the figures are so old as to be worthless.

The reports adds and averages litters numbers born between 2009 and 2015 and reaches an average figure of 2,952. A more honest approach would be to note that litter numbers are in continuous and steady decline to a point that the 2018 figure was 2,344 litters. (I realise that the report was published prior to that date, but the decline could have been estimated).

That miscalculation makes a first dent of 21% error in the total number of greyhounds being assessed. All their calculations are based on this fundamental flaw.

They also underestimated the number of dogs coming to Britain. GBGB registered 6,392 Irish dogs in 2018, the estimate was 6,250.

No mention of exporting anywhere else. One minute Pakistan and China are up to their ears in exploited Irish greyhounds. You really cant have it all ways guys.

The problems start early in the report of 1,000 more greyhounds each year than required to sustain a greyhound racing industry.

To a certain extent, that statement gives a clue to what the report seems to be trying to achieve.

Forget, exporting to Britain, or anywhere else. Forget coursing, the report is saying this is our view on how many dogs would be required to service Irelands greyhound tracks.

I stand by all my points in the previous article and will try not to repeat them here. However, some clarification might help. Just one example. In my previous article, I noted that roughly half of all Irish greyhounds born come to Britain.

(That should be good news. . . as the report states: On a positive note, dogs exported to the UK are accounted for and likely to be looked after.)

So half gone. Take out hare coursers (the report estimates 15% which seems fair) and pup mortality (5% seems very low), the biggest hole, by far, relates to dogs who spend their entire racing careers in Ireland.

Now I dont know how many dogs we are talking about, but there are some clues. For example, last week, there were 358 races in Ireland. I dont have the resources to check out every runner, but lets assume they are all six dog races. That is 2,148 runners.

Of the winners, 5 were 2014 whelps, 27 were 2015 whelps, and 100 were 2016 whelps. Proportionately, is it wrong to assume that those aged groups would be spread across all the runners, instead of just the winners? They contribute to 37% of the wins

Now those estimated 795 greyhounds (37% of 2,148) are extremely unlikely to come to Britain, or anywhere else. They are past their likely sale date.

While the remaining 63% of 2017 and 2018 whelps must include greyhounds destined for Britain, surely many must inevitably remain in Ireland as next years older crop?

How many? I truthfully wouldnt want to guess. Nor would I want to estimate how many available greyhounds were sat in the kennels last week unable to get a race. This is just a snapshot of available greyhounds in a single week.

Moving on the report makes assumptions that all young greyhounds must be on the RMS (Race Management System). But only 66% of the pups which in theory should be available for registration were actually registered for the five years 2011 to 2015.. . .28% of them have no race records which means they have never raced. Once again some will no doubt have been sold to the UK but the variance is far too large to be explained by that item alone.

PLAIN WRONG! many of Irelands leading breeders including the Sean and Michael (Droopys) Dunphy , Ian (Swift) Greaves and Liam (Ballymac) Dowling frequently sell pups with no Irish form.

There is SO SO MUCH MORE that is nonsensical, illogical and just wrong about this report, but I will spare my weary reader.

To be charitable the authors were struggling to comprehend the complexities of the greyhound industry.

However, the greatest mistake belongs to IGB.

They shouldnt have binned the bloody thing, they should have burned it first.

Mission to prey was the episode in question whereby they accused a priest of being a paedophile who fathered a child with an underage girl. He offered them a paternity test before it aired but they declined. RTE don't let the facts get in the way of their tabloid level journalism.