19/06/2026
Seriously?
Waterford City and County Council?
To exempt travellers, or any other ethnic minority would surely discriminate against the rest of horse owners?
What WCC is REALLY worried about is that it may have to pay out in the region of 1-1.5k per horse to have removed by the horse pound operatives.
The legislation clearly states that ALL equines are ONLY to be held on registered equine premises, and ALL equines must be chipped and ALL owners must have a valid equine passport. What the legislation DOESN’T SAY is that there any exemptions for anyone, not on religious grounds, not on colour, not on social or ethnic status.
All local authorities have allowed the situation to get out of control, and have done so due to not being willing to pay the horse pound operatives to remove the animals.
Yet, WCC will pay out 1000s every year for ten minute firework displays. Logic?
It’s very simple. Sulky racing is NOT cultural or traditional, in fact it’s a relatively recent phenomenon in the travelling community. It’s solely about high stakes gambling. The participants care nothing for, or about, other road users.
The fact is when, not if, there’s a major incident caused by these sulky races and people actually die, the government and the TDS will come out wringing their hands saying ‘something’ must be done. That ‘something’ will be too late for the life long crippled or dead. If a family member of a local politician or government TD is injured or killed, legislation banning the use of carts on roads would be rushed through overnight. Is that what it will take?
Those who don’t want any legal accountability don’t want it for a reason, they want to be able to leg it away from any incident and leave their bleeding and dying animals to be someone else’s responsibility, ditto any responsibility for any injury or death that ensue to other road users.
The issue of horse welfare, and particularly sulky racing, has been raised on numerous occasions
