Racing is publicly funded so why is this €2.5bn industry regulated by a private body?

In May of last year, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue wrote to the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) requesting the contract and remuneration details of its former chief executive Denis Egan who had taken early retirement in 2021. He wasn’t given them.

The reasons are complex and revolve around a derogation from such disclosure given by a previous minister that wound up forming just a strand of last week’s train wreck of an appearance by the IHRB before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

But basically, when the Minister responsible for Irish racing, the person in control of the €72.8 million of State funding that’s going to the sector this year, demanded to see paperwork in the public interest he was effectively told to do one.

If it smacks of arrogance and a chronic lack of political nous, it also reflects how Irish racing’s regulator remains a private body, essentially answerable only to itself. As its own little fiefdom, the IHRB was technically entitled to thumb its nose at the Government.

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The ramshackle governance ramifications of that were littered across the PAC hearing. Department officials and the Comptroller and Auditor General basically threw their hands up at the IHRB’s failure to meet the Minister’s request. Egan’s contract either doesn’t exist or the IHRB don’t have it.

The absurdity doesn’t stop there. An independent investigation is under way due to a financial matter of “grave concern” uncovered a couple of days before the PAC hearing. It’s likely to take months, which means more conjecture on top of a vast vat of speculation that already exists.

The IHRB’s new chief executive, Darragh O’Loughlin, was quick to say the problem isn’t about personal gain or misappropriation of public funds.

[ IHRB thrown into disarray by ‘bombshell’ revelation of ‘grave financial concern’ ]

[ IHRB says no public money used to give ex-CEO additional early retirement payment ]

But when asked if it related to the running and regulation of various charitable trusts managed by the IHRB and its constituent bodies, the Turf Club and Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee, he said he couldn’t address speculation.

If it wasn’t the most reassuring of responses, then for far too many both within and without the industry, it was of a piece when it comes to a regulator that has spent much of the last decade in a reputational firefight.

At the heart of that lie perceptions of a closed shop in hock to an oligarchy of powerful interests that produces a regulatory landscape more interested in keeping a lid on integrity problems than actively rooting them out.

Crucial to that is the IHRB’s structure as a self-appointed organisation which this year will get €11.4 million of public money. It is a contradiction at the heart of an accountability deficit that facilitates a situation where a Minister can to all intents and purposes get told to whistle.

It has been whispered privately this week that O’Loughlin has over-egged the gravity of what’s being investigated. The suggestion is he is new to the job and unfamiliar with racing’s inclination towards privately ironing out any dirty linen by itself.

That instinct is untenable when it comes to spending public money, just as once the details of this investigation fade into memory the unsustainable regulatory paradox at the heart of Irish racing will remain.

Public funding makes the regulation of a €2.5 billion industry by a private body an anachronism the sport can’t afford. Legislation separating regulation from the administrative role carried out by Horse Racing Ireland is admirable in theory but falls down in practice.

Irish racing’s funding model is uniquely tied up in State support. In return it generates economic benefits and thousands of jobs. But it also demands the sector play ball, and be seen to play ball, with paymasters in control of the public purse.

Trotting out words such as accountability needs to be about more than parroting corporate jargon.

All this is in a climate where some mainstream voices are viscerally critical of the sport and its funding. Those in charge of integrity looking shifty in front of a Government committee is another reputational clanger that undermines legitimate expectations of transparency.

The regulatory structure looks like a relic from another time. Many within the IHRB are trying might and main to implement reform, and with some success. But too much of it smacks of Obama’s line about lipstick on a pig.

Whatever the outcome of this investigation, the optics of Irish racing’s integrity being policed by a private body in receipt of public funds and capable of biting the Government hand that feeds is not a long-term runner.

Putting promotion and integrity under one roof is no regulatory panacea. But it’s a model that other jurisdictions seem to manage without fuss. And their financial fate isn’t nearly as bound up in being seen to be publicly accountable as is the case here.

Rather like looking back at smoking in planes or drink-driving advice about how two will do, it appears only a matter of time before verdicts on the current regulatory model will revolve around variants on a theme of, ‘what were you thinking?’

Something for the Weekend

Chuck Berry fans will hope for wiggles in their knees when they see LITTLE QUEENIE (3.55) coming down to the Naas winning line on Saturday. She’s back to sprinting after getting run over in the closing stages over seven furlongs last time.

The more rain that falls on Haydock the better for the ex-Irish ONE FOR BOBBY (2.40) in Saturday’s Lancashire Oaks. She has something to find on ratings but those at the head of the betting may not relish testing conditions as much as Hughie Morrison’s Frankel filly who can go well at big odds.