The co-leader of the Social Democrats party, Catherine Murphy TD has said that State funding of the greyhound industry should be reviewed in light of a report revealing over production of pups which resulted in widespread culling.

An RTÉ Investigates programme on Wednesday cited a confidential business analysis report prepared for the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) which indicated that up to 6,000 greyhounds are being killed each year because they are not fast enough.

The confidential report, which was prepared for the IGB by consultants Preferred Results in 2017, but was never published, also revealed that the greyhound industry is breeding 1,000 per cent more puppies than it needs, leading to a cull of thousands of racing dogs every year.

Ms Murphy told RTE radio’s Today with Sean O’Rourke show that State funding of the industry needs to be examined now and that the report prepared by Preferred Results should be published.

She said she could not accept a claim by the CEO of the Irish Greyhound Board, Gerard Dollards that only a minority of people in the industry were behaving like this and that the majority were operating in a proper fashion.

“I would have to question continued State funding of this industry,” she added.

Ms Murphy said it did not look like the industry was capable of self regulation.

The CEO of the Irish Greyhound Board, Gerard Dollard has said it is totally unacceptable for healthy animals to be killed just because they are allegedly “not fast enough.”

He was responding to an RTÉ Investigates programme broadcast on Wednesday which had cited a confidential business analysis report prepared for the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) which stated that up to 6,000 greyhounds are being killed each year because they are not fast enough.

The Irish greyhound industry is breeding 1,000% more puppies than it needs, leading to a cull of thousands of racing dogs every year.

The confidential report was prepared for the IGB by consultants Preferred Results Ltd in 2017, but was never published.