Groups using the Royal Dublin Society as a platform to criticise the Government were condemned at the closing of the Dublin Horse Show yesterday by the chief executive of the RDS, Mr Shane Cleary.
Mr Cleary said that the policy of the RDS was to remain neutral. He did not appreciate groups coming to the show to use it as a means of attacking the Government. While conceding that people were entitled to express their views and to engage in free speech, he said: "I just wish they would go away."
There were a number of controversies during this year's Kerry gold Horse Show. The main sponsor, the Irish Dairy Board, was called on by the Irish Council Against Bloodsports to stop sponsoring the inter-hunt chase. The Animal Plant Health Association criticised the Government and the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mr Walsh, for failing to fight a case over the banning of equine drugs by the European Commission from the beginning of next year.
Mr Cleary announced that he would be carrying out a full review of the Dublin Horse Show within the next few weeks with a view to staging a special event next year.
He described attendances at the show as satisfactory and said that it continued to draw great support from abroad as well as from Dublin and other parts of Ireland.
Mr Cleary said there would have to be an examination of the number of animals qualifying for the show because entries could not be accommodated at the rate at which they were continuing to grow.
He expressed satisfaction with the sponsorship of the Irish Dairy Board, which had spent £4 million on the show over the past 11 years. While the question of sponsorship was discussed on an annual basis, he was very happy with the board as the main sponsor. No other major sponsor was seeking to take the event from it.
The society, he said, was continuing to grow and was in a healthy financial position, with £2 million in the bank and an expected healthy cashflow from the new Four Seasons Hotel, of which it was the landlord.