Minister Heydon takes early action to improve equine traceability in line with Wall Report Action Plan
- Published on: 24 July 2025
- Last updated on: 24 July 2025
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, today announced a scheme to fund improvements in how equine life events are captured.
The Equine Traceability Improvement Scheme 2025 will provide €500,000 in funding to support the use of IT solutions by passport issuing organisations and equine sales houses to monitor the movements of Ireland’s equine population more effectively.
The scheme will be open to the seven passport issuing organisations as well as the five main equine sales houses.
The scheme is under the Minister’s plan to implement the recommendations of the Professor Paddy Wall Report to Strengthen Equine Identification, Traceability and Welfare.
Launching the scheme, Minister Heydon highlighted the potential of IT:
“IT solutions have been transformational in the traceability of animals. In his report on how to strengthen equine traceability, Professor Paddy Wall recommends the adoption of technology to reduce admin burden and have our systems avail of the best international advancements. I want the beneficiaries of this scheme to use this aid to explore the innovative options available to improve how we capture equine life events and the movement of our equine population.”
The Wall Report proposed a number of wide-ranging recommendations including that IT solutions should be employed to solve some of the traceability gaps. Minister Heydon has published an action plan to deliver the reforms proposed by Professor Wall.
A number of these actions are based on the implementation of IT solutions including:
- automated transfer of information between equine passport issuing organisations (PIOs) and private veterinary practitioners (PVPs) and owners/operators of horses
- implementing a digital solution for notification of change of ownership. This is currently a time-consuming and paper-based system
- automated transfer of ownership data from sales and auction houses
- digital solution to capture real time updates relating to a horse’s life events such as the chipping and marking of a foal by the PVP
- use of QR codes on passports
The Minister concluded by emphasising how the key objective of this scheme is ultimately to improve equine welfare:
“Robust traceability is fundamental to ensuring horse owners and keepers are accountable for the welfare of their horses. Without accountability, horses are vulnerable to neglect and mistreatment. Investing in better traceability is an investment in better equine welfare.”
The scheme is now open and the deadline for receipt of applications is 30 September 2025.