Oireachtas committee to grill horseracing agency and regulators on accounts and abattoir

ONE YEAR ON from a “bombshell” appearance, senior figures in the horseracing industry and its regulators will come under the microscope of the Dáil’s powerful Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today.

Revelations about a Kildare abattoir and financial transactions involving an injured jockeys charity will come in for scrutiny later this morning at the PAC.

Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) and senior Department of Agriculture officials will go before TDs as as the industry finds itself in the media spotlight.

A key issue on the committee’s agenda will be to try to shed light on the circumstances that led to the IHRB receiving a transfer of €350,000 from a charitable fund for injured jockeys, before then repaying the charity.

IHRB’s opening statement for the meeting, seen by The Journal, says that the €350,000 transfer was an “isolated incident”. It adds that “detailed scrutiny” of transactions over the past six years has taken place and that all recommendations of a forthcoming review will be taken on board.

The committee will also seek to hold the HRI, IHRB and agriculture officials – who are the industry’s regulator – to account over the Shannonside Foods scandal.

An RTÉ Investigates programme used hidden cameras at the site of Ireland’s only active abattoir for horses in Straffan, Co Kildare and uncovered animal welfare abuses and cruelty towards horses being sent for slaughter.

Image recorded in the abattoir in Straffan Co Kildare.

The chair of the PAC has also warned that there are “clearly question marks” over each body’s actions, while not ruling out the potential for funding to be withheld.

Chairperson Brian Stanley told The Journal that there’s a “number of curious issues regarding the accounts” of the HRI and IHRB which needs to be examined by TDs.

“We have Horse Racing Ireland which receives €80m a year in taxpayers’ money and we also have the IHRB which has a specific function in terms of the regulation of the sector and upholding its integrity.

“The key thing is, we’re talking about public money. And we’re talking about public money going to a very valuable industry, one that has a worldwide reputation,” Sinn Féin Laoisn-Offaly TD said.

Stanley added the public have been “sickened” by images of mistreatment of animals in the RTÉ programme.

There are also “questions for the department” as they are in charge of “funding and oversight” for horse racing in Ireland, Stanley said.

“We have to examine their role and see what, if any, action was taken,” he continued.

In the RTÉ programme, it was outlined that Department of Agriculture inspectors did not have a remit to regulate or inspect the specific building where hidden cameras were used.

Funding has been withheld from organisations in recent years due to major governance concerns, such as with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI).

It most recently had €6.8m of state funding from the Department of Sport suspended after it emerged that the pay package of CEO Jonathan Hill did not comply with the terms of a bailout deal brokered by the government several years ago.

Asked if it’s possible that funding could be withheld, Stanley said he did not want to prejudge the outcome and that any decision would lie with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

However, Stanley added:

“We need proper accountability in terms of how money is used and we also need proper accountability in terms of the practices and how business is done by any body that’s funded by the taxpayer. There are clearly question marks over these two bodies and we need answers.”

‘Grave concern’

In an extraordinary appearance last summer, the IHRB’s chief executive told TDs an issue of “grave concern” had arisen only hours before he entered the PAC’s committee room in Leinster House.

Its senior financial officer had gone on leave after discovering an issue of “grave concern”, which is believed to be linked to the €350,000 transaction.

Last week, IHRB published its annual report which includes a note provided by Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy, stating that “concerns arose” in June 2023 about the “financial governance of those transactions”, leading to the external review.

The accounts outline how, in January 2022, the transfer of €350,000 was made from the Jockeys Emergency Fund to the IHRB, but was “subsequently reversed” three months later in April 2022.

This was not the only discrepancy in the accounts – as The Journal reported last October, tens of thousands of euro the IHRB had been recorded as providing in 2019 to various charitable organisations in the sector catering to injured jockeys – but these figures didn’t match the sums provided in the IHRB’s financial statements published the following year.

Consultants Mazars has been tasked to carry out an “independent external review” of the financial governance issue and other matters. The review is ongoing.