Opening Statement to the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Committee Room 4, Leinster House, Dublin 2  |  Wed 06 Nov 2024

 

Chairman and Members of the Committee, on behalf of the IHRB I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Committee this evening to discuss Governance in the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board.  I am Darragh O’Loughlin, Chief Executive Officer of the IHRB, and I am joined by our new Chief Financial Officer, John Murphy, and our Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Lynn Hillyer.

 

Background 

The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board is all-island body which exists to assure public trust in horseracing in Ireland and safeguard its global reputation. The Irish horseracing industry supports over 30,000 jobs and contributes €2.46 billion to the economy.

The IHRB is solely and independently responsible for making and enforcing the Rules of Racing, licensing all participants, and regulating horseracing, including anti-doping and handicapping.

The IHRB provides professional officials and volunteer Raceday Stewards for all race meetings in Ireland to ensure that the rules are properly observed and that the integrity of the sport is maintained – a combined 483 race fixtures across the 32 counties in 2023 between Flat, National Hunt and Point to Point racing, with 38,601 runners in total.

 

Governance

It is the ambition of the Board and management that the IHRB be recognised as a world class regulator for horseracing, with an ongoing focus on excellence in the delivery of our core functions of integrity, rider safety and equine welfare.

The IHRB is currently engaged in an ambitious programme of modernisation and change, guided by the IHRB Strategy 2024-2027 which we published late last year. This strategy commits us to consistently applying a robust governance framework and rigorous probity regime.

The IHRB’s horseracing integrity services funding comes via Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and we meet at least quarterly with them to ensure transparency and oversight of spending under the agreed budget. In mid-2023 a significantly revised and strengthened Service Level Agreement governing the provision and use of funding for horseracing integrity services was agreed between HRI and IHRB and we continue to operate within the agreed funding parameters.

 

Financial Governance Matter

As the Committee will recall, the Board became aware in June 2023 of an issue relating to financial governance which had occurred in early 2022. This was immediately brought to the attention of the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Horse Racing Ireland and the Comptroller and Auditor General, and was disclosed to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee the following day.

The issue concerned an unauthorised transfer in January 2022 of €350,000 from the Jockeys Emergency Fund, a charity bank account administered by the IHRB, to the IHRB’s bank account. This was subsequently reversed in April 2022.

The professional services firm Forvis Mazars was engaged to carry out an independent review of this and other financial governance matters, which involved detailed scrutiny of six years’ worth of IHRB financial and other records as well as interviews with relevant individuals. Their report was received late last week and is being considered by the Boards of IHRB and HRI. It has been shared with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and will be published shortly.

The IHRB recognises the importance of a robust governance structure and believes that the incident that gave rise to the Forvis Mazars review should not have happened.

Reassuringly, the review identified no transactions that were in breach of financial governance requirements other than that which prompted the initial concern, and there was no evidence of misappropriation for personal gain. Nonetheless, since commissioning the review, significant changes to enhance financial governance have been implemented by the IHRB or are in progress, guided by draft final reports provided during the review process.

These specific measures, designed to address the recommendations, include: 

• Strengthened financial controls, particularly regarding the authorisation and approval of online banking payments, with strict transaction approval limits and segregation of accounts access.
• Developing and enforcing comprehensive documentation and formal approval procedures for all material financial transactions.
• Strengthening and expanding the existing Service Level Agreement between IHRB and HRI to include provisions capturing the recommendations made to ensure compliance with governance and other requirements and enhanced transparency and reporting mechanisms in relation to the Integrity Services Budget.
• Putting in place formal written agreements and detailed procedures with all charities and non-profit entities receiving administrative support from the IHRB, setting out roles and responsibilities.
• Strengthened governance procedures in relation to the approval, funding and reporting of redundancy and/or retirement payments.
• Supporting the Trustees of the charities in their implementation of appropriate and effective charity governance policies and procedures.
• Recording and tracking our organisational compliance with the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies.
• Closer collaboration with HRI and, where appropriate, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in relation to financial and governance matters.
• Increased operational collaboration with HRI on efficient delivery of shared objectives, including a joint IT strategy and an expanding shared services approach to key support functions such as HR and Procurement. This is already bringing gains in capacity, effectiveness and resilience, and eliminating key person dependencies.

The IHRB is resolute in our commitment to fully addressing the issues highlighted in the review, making the necessary changes to uphold the highest standards of financial governance, and assuring public trust in the IHRB as the regulator of Irish horseracing. We are satisfied that the measures identified above will address the recommendations made by Forvis Mazars and we are on target to have them fully implemented by year end.

 

Equine Welfare

Reducing the risk of injury to racehorses on track, particularly fatal injury, is a significant challenge to racing jurisdictions world-wide and is a core pillar of the IHRB strategy. To this end, the Board initiated the Equine Injury in Irish Racing Risk Reduction (EIIRRR) Project to determine, analyse and mitigate risk factors for racing-related equine injuries in Ireland and to identify opportunities to improve safety for our horses and riders.

The Project’s findings have led to an enhancement of the IHRB’s raceday equine veterinary inspection programme, new standards for racecourse trot-up areas, and implementation of an evidence-based risk assessment for raceday injury. 

IHRB pre-race regulatory veterinary inspections have been refined and expanded on a broader risk-based approach to specifically target horses which may be at increased relative risk of injury. For example, any horse that has not raced for 365 or more days, or that fell on its previous start, is automatically checked by the IHRB veterinary team on arrival at the racecourse.  

Equally, there is a focus on horses above certain age thresholds, or those who were older when making their debut on the racecourse; these also undergo a pre-race examination.

Alongside enhanced inspections on track, the IHRB veterinary team works with trainers and their own vets before any previously injured horse returns to racing, to ensure the horse’s suitability to race before they resume.

We also run periodic expert seminars for trainers and vets to provide information on reducing race-related equine injury, and our Clerks of the Course work closely with racecourses to ensure that the track is presented in such a way as to minimise risk of injury.

 

Equine Anti-Doping

The equine anti-doping programme remains a top priority and our approach continues to evolve in line with international best practice, with ongoing phased implementation of the recommendations of the independent Suann review.

IHRB teams took 5,866 samples from horses in 2023, which were analysed at LGC in Newmarket, one of only six IFHA recognised reference laboratories worldwide. These resulted in the detection of six adverse findings and the trainers involved have been dealt with through our disciplinary processes in accordance with the Rules of Racing.

This year we also launched a joint anti-doping initiative with the British Horseracing Authority which saw approximately 250 samples, both blood and hair, taken from over 120 horses across 14 training establishments in advance of the Cheltenham festival.

Lastly, to enhance transparency, we have begun monthly publication of anti-doping and other integrity activity data on our website, including details of horses which have been the subject of an adverse finding.

 

Conclusion

Thank you again for your invitation to appear and for your attention this evening. My colleagues and I are happy to expand on any element of this statement or answer any other questions the Committee may have.