Racing watchdog’s matter of ‘grave concern’ a €350,000 transfer from Jockeys Emergency Fund to regulator

In advance of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s (IHRB) appearance before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) next week, it has been confirmed the financial “bombshell” disclosed by the sport’s regulator to PAC a year ago involves a €350,000 transfer from the Jockeys Emergency Fund to the IHRB in early 2022. The transfer was reversed three months later.

On the back of that disclosure of a financial issue of “grave concern” by the IHRB’s chief executive Darragh O’Loughlin last June, an independent report was commissioned by the Mazars audit firm. Expected to take a matter of months the report has still not seen the light of day and may not even be published before the regulator’s latest PAC appearance on Thursday.

However, the IHRB’s 2022 annual report, which emerged on Friday, revealed that the €350,000 transfer took place in January of 2022, but was reversed in April of that year. A note in the 72-page report says the transfer is “the subject of an external independent review”.

Why the transfers took place remains unclear. The IHRB administers several charity funds that support injured jockeys. An IHRB spokesman confirmed the transfer is at the centre of the Mazars’ investigation.

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Darragh O’Loughlin told the PAC last year he had become aware of a financial issue of grave concern he labelled a “bombshell.” He also reported that the IHRB’s chief financial officer Donal O’Shea had been put on a period voluntary leave without prejudice to his position. Although officials have stayed tight-lipped since, O’Loughlin has said he didn’t believe the issue had anything to do with “personal gain” and no misappropriation of public funds took place.

The IHRB, the body that polices Irish racing, and which has been the focal point of public criticism in recent years, particularly concerning doping issues, is a private body with centuries of tradition in regulating the sport. This year it has an operational budget of €11.4 million given to it through Horse Racing Ireland.

A first IHRB annual report was published for 2021 and its 2022 report has been submitted to the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

O’Loughlin was appointed IHRB chief executive in June of 2022, taking over from Denis Egan who had been at the regulatory helm for 20 years. Egan took early retirement under a voluntary redundancy scheme in 2021 and received a termination payment of €384,879.

The IHRB’s 2021 annual report contained a revelation by the Comptroller and Auditor General that Egan got a bigger golden handshake than the maximum payment outlined under the voluntary redundancy scheme, amounting to more than €140,000 extra.

The IHRB said no public money was used in that process, stating last year the €141,880 was generated by contributions from the Turf Club and the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee. They are the constituent parts of the IHRB which was set up in 2018 as a company limited by guarantee.

Mazars was hired almost a year ago with a forecast time frame of several months before a report would be issued. No report has yet been published although it is understood high-ranking IHRB officials have received a draft copy.

In November, the chairman of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee, Fianna Fáil TD Jackie Cahill, described the failure to deliver the Mazars’ report as “completely and utterly unacceptable”. On that occasion, O’Loughlin said the IHRB had provided Mazars with six years of financial records and banking transactions as well as “relevant personal records”.

Among the funds that provide help and support to jockeys, and administered by the IHRB, is the Jockeys Accident Fund which was established in 1933. Its funding includes levies on owners and trainers as well as voluntary donations. It was listed as a charity in 2014 but was removed from the register of charities in 2021.

On Friday, O’Loughlin said: “When the issue pertaining to a transfer of €350,000 from the Jockeys Emergency Fund to the IHRB and its subsequent repayment came to the board’s attention we immediately notified the Minister for Agriculture, Food & Marine, the Comptroller and Auditor General and Horse Racing Ireland.

“The IHRB then commissioned Mazars to carry out an independent external review and it is our intention to publish the recommendations of the report once it is completed.”