The chief financial officer of the horseracing regulator, the IHRB, has resigned a year after embarking on voluntary leave in the wake of the emergence of a financial matter of “grave concern” at the body.
Donal O’Shea has resigned from the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board “and no longer works for the IHRB”, the board confirmed in a statement.
Mr O’Shea had been on voluntary leave since June 28, 2023, the day before IHRB chief executive Darragh O’Loughlin announced an issue of financial governance at an appearance before the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
It subsequently emerged that the issue related to €350,000 having been transferred from a jockey’s charity to the board’s bank account, and then back again, in early 2022.
Mr O’Loughlin clarified to the PAC last month that Mr O’Shea’s voluntary leave in practice meant “he went on it himself, he wasn’t suspended”.
He added that an external investigation into the €350,000 transfer had confirmed that the issue was an “isolated incident”.
At the PAC in June, Mr O’Loughlin agreed that a year is “an exceptionally long time” to be on voluntary leave, but would not divulge Mr O’Shea’s salary, adding that a breakdown of the IHRB’s leading salaries is published in its annual report.
According to the IHRB’s annual report for 2022, published last month, four individuals, not counting Mr O’Loughlin himself, were paid a salary of between €110,000 and €130,000 that year.
Mr O’Loughlin said he did not know why the €350,000 was transferred between the Jockey’s Emergency Fund and the IHRB, adding that he is expecting that question to be answered by the external probe by consultants Mazars, which is investigating six years’ worth of financials at the IHRB.
