The body with responsibility for the regulation of horseracing in Ireland says that a financial governance issue of “grave concern” that emerged last year was an “isolated incident”.
The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) will on Thursday tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the transfer of €350,000 from the Jockey’s Emergency Fund, a jockey’s welfare charity, to the board’s bank account in January 2022, before being repaid three months later, was the only such issue noted in the board’s banking transactions for that year.
Chief executive Darragh O’Loughlin will say that on foot of the discovery of the transfer, consultancy firm Mazars had been engaged to review six years’ worth of financial and other records at the IHRB, with a final report due to be submitted “shortly”.
“Pending receipt of the Mazars report, the auditors examined banking transactions for the financial year 2022 and confirmed that the highlighted transfer of €350,000 was an isolated incident,” Mr O’Loughlin will tell the committee.
Last June Mr O’Loughlin, in his previous appearance before the PAC, caused a stir in announcing that the “bombshell” issue of financial governance, as he described it, had come to his attention within the previous 48 hours, something he described as a “hitherto unknown issue… which caused grave concern”.
At that meeting the IHRB’s chief financial officer, Donal O’Shea, who has worked for the board since 2017 and had been due to appear, was absent.
When asked at the time where Mr O’Shea was, Mr O’Loughlin replied that the CFO had taken “a period of voluntary leave without prejudice to his position”. When pressed further, Mr O’Loughlin said the period of leave had begun the previous day.
Mr O’Loughlin, further asked whether or not Mr O’Shea had been asked to take voluntary leave, or whether he had elected to do so, said he would “prefer not to answer that question”.
The €350,000 transfer in question was reported in the IHRB’s annual report for 2022, published last week, under the title ‘Financial Governance Issue’.
On Thursday, Mr O’Loughlin will tell the PAC that it is the intention of the board that the findings of Mazars “will be published and the recommendations will be acted on”.
He is expected to say that “formal agreements” are being put in place between the IHRB and the various charities and non-profit entities for which it provides administrative support.
The board will be appearing together with representatives from Horse Racing Ireland, the sport’s governing body which will be making its first appearance before an Oireachtas committee since the publication of a series of reports by RTÉ Investigates last week exposing the alleged abuse of horses destined for slaughter in Ireland, amongst other matters.