Minutes of ECNI Meeting Monday 9 Feb 2015 at Lusk Equestrian
Present Geoff Cannon, Howard Whelan, , Helen Troughton, Robin McCabe, Harold Lusk ,John Kidd, David Kirkpatrick, Janet Currie,Sam Smyth, Dennis MacAuley,Stewart Stirling
Apologies, Joanne Jardine, Lorna Johnston,Valerie McCallister
The minutes of the meeting on 24 November were passed.
The Chairman presented a report on the various meetings with DARD officials the text of which is contained below. It was subsequently agreed that this should be forwarded to each representative for them to inform their individual organisations.
Chairman’s Report on Meetings with DARD Officials
It has become increasingly clear to the ECNI Office Bearers since taking up their posts last year that while the ECNI can have a Strategy Plan to push forward the Equine Industry, this plan is ineffectual if DARD have no Policy or Strategy of their own. Effectively all they have been doing is paying lip service to us and dragging out any solutions to problems put forward to them by us. A prime example is the Rates issue which has been dragging on for years.
Last autumn, a meeting was held with Collette McMaster, who is head of Farm Policy. The initial part of the meeting was to ensure that the Equine Sector was not excluded from the new Rural Development Programme. I requested an extension to this meeting so that we could talk about Strategy and Policy. It soon became clear in the ensuing conversation that there was no policy. We were told that due to lack of funding it was unlikely that anything would progress. My comment was, that now was the very time to put in place a Policy/Strategy, so that funding when and if it became available in the future, would not be hampered by a lack of Government Policy!
We then met with John Fay and Seamus McAlinney at Greenmount before Christmas. Again themaintopic was the lack of policy/ vision by DARD. They were very supportive of our stance and the ECNI and have endeavoured to assist us taking this matter forward. We pointed out to them that while CAFRE had a college that taught Equine studies, Government policy ended on graduation. Most students have to leave Northern Ireland to gain meaningful employment! As a result of this meeting the two Equine Lecturers from Greenmount met with us two weeks ago to see if there is a way that we can quantify the value of the Industry and what would be the best avenue to go about it.( Will be meeting with them again on Wednesday at Enniskillen) It was also agreed that the industry is very poor on self-promotion both of the achievements of personnel and Equines. We need to be sure that these achievements are noticed by the powers that be and recognised! There is to be a follow up meeting at Greenmount on 20th March.
Last week we had another meeting, this time with the Chief Veterinary Officer, Robert Huey. He had assembled a high profile set of Officials to meet us. They included Policy, Animal Welfare, Rural Development, Marketing and Veterinary Services. Again the emphasis of the meeting was that if DARD had a policy on Equines, then the implementation of the proposed registration of premises and the info for the data base would be more easily obtained. We believe that the message may at last be getting through to them. Robert reiterated on numerous occasions that he did not want to see the demise of the ECNI. (Easier to deal with one body rather than 10 plus) We hope that there will be a follow up meeting in the not too distant future with him.
I had had a telephone call with Andrew Adams the day before our meeting with Robert Huey and he said to me that he didn’t think that Robert would be interested in Policy/Strategy issues!!!
We have been attempting to invite the Minister to visit a Racing Yard, Show Jumping Yard and Riding School, to show her and her officials what goes on the ground within the Equine Industry. We have not been encouraged by DARD Officials in this respect to date. We will continue to pursue the matter in conjunction with the heads of the two colleges.
The review of the Animal Welfare Act is still ongoing. However the Equine part of it is on hold while they look at the Southern and Welsh versions. The Department are aware that we are not happy with the present situation and the waste of public money being spent on so called welfare cases.
End of report
As regards the Minisiterial invitation Andrew advised that the Minister will only attend to get an understanding of how more money would improve the position and the differences that it would make.
AOB
Finance - the Chairman brought up the subject of the required statutory accounts and returns for ECNI which are due shortly and the need for this to be undertaken by an Accountant given the Limited Company status. He advised that he and the Treasurer are going to try to get these completed for a nominal fee subject to approval from the Directors – this was agreed.
Robin McCabe felt it appropriate to thank the Chairman for the work that he had put into meeting with DARD offiicals on behalf of the industry
Date of next meeting 31 March 2015
Signed
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Geoff Cannon Chairman