Kilbeggan Racecourse has been ordered to remove the Department of Social Protection from a list of sponsors on its website.

The Westmeath racecourse - where Fianna Fail Senator Paul Daly is a Kilbeggan Races director - had been falsely claiming that the Department was one of its sponsors.

The Irish Council Against Blood Sports contacted the Department about its inclusion in the list and we were told: “The Department’s press office became aware of information published on the Kilbeggan Races page just yesterday (22 August 2022). The Department are not sponsors of Kilbeggan Races and have not been sponsors.”

The spokesperson stated that the Department contacted the racecourse “to request the removal of this text from the page on their website and from any other marketing material”.

The Department has now been deleted from the list of sponsors.

The latest “Register of interests of members of Seanad Éireann” (February 2022) shows that Senator Paul Daly remains a “Director of Kilbeggan Races: Kilbeggan Race Company Ltd, Loughnagore, Kilbeggan, Co. Westmeath”. He is a horse breeder who is on record as saying that he has “a severe and serious interest in the sector”.

He was nominated to the Seanad’s Agriculture panel by the Irish Thoroughbreds Breeders Association. In 2020 and 2021, Senator Daly voted in favour of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund Regulations which channelled €96 million / €88 million of taxpayers’ money into horse and greyhound racing (€147.2 million to horse racing).

Speaking in Seanad Eireann in December 2021, he pushed for "more investment" in horse racing.

SEE ALSO:

I support Govt funding to racing: Racecourse chairman and horse breeder, Senator Paul Daly
https://banbloodsports.wordpress.com/2020/12/20/i-support-govt-funding-to-racing-racecourse-chairman-and-horse-breeder-senator-paul-daly/

ACTION ALERT

Among the list of sponsors of Kilbeggan Races is Westmeath County Council. In June 2022, it sponsored a €7,080 “Belvedere House and Gardens” race and in September 2021, the Council’s Belvedere House property was attached to two €5,900 'Belvedere House, Gardens & Park Handicap Hurdle' races.

Urge Westmeath County Council to end its sponsorship of horse racing and redirect the money to worthy community groups and projects.

Pat Gallagher, Chief Executive
Westmeath County Council
CC: Westmeath County Councillors

Email: chiefexecutive@Westmeathcoco.ie; info@belvedere-house.ie; john.dolan@westmeathcoco.ie; tom.farrell@westmeathcoco.ie; aengus.orourke@westmeathcoco.ie; fkeena@westmeathcoco.ie; liam.mcdaniel@westmeathcoco.ie; vinny.mccormack@westmeathcoco.ie; jamie.moran@westmeathcoco.ie; jpenrose@westmeathcoco.ie