Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation. They are getting a lot of questions put to them. There are a couple of points on which I would like some clarification before I go into the issue of the CEO. I come from a constituency in which the horse racing and horse breeding industries are hugely important. There is the issue of the €64 million and the value for money. There is a split between national hunt racing and flat racing. I would rather the split was more favourable towards the national hunt. It is of greater benefit to many individuals. While the prize money might seem strong, there was a time when all of our best horses left this country. Thankfully now many of them stay here to race. We have many big owners here but that prize money filters down through the sales. Many small owners are able to make the selling of store horses a profitable business. The distribution of the prize money should be something that should be looked at into the future.

Before I get into the CEO issue, I want to make a point about the betting tax that was talked about. I am a man who enjoys a day at the races. Track bookmakers are coming under serious pressure. I refer to the 1% tax and the need to have the licence. We still have a lot of people who are betting illegally outside the licences and who are not paying the 1% tax on their turnover. Track bookmakers and the way they are treated with regard to this tax have to be examined. At any racecourse, whether it is horse racing or dog racing, the number of bookmakers has diminished very significantly. I think the board should look at the way this tax is operating and the way track bookmakers must operate under it. Bookmakers are the heart-throb of the industry and of racing. It would be a shame if we lost track bookmakers. That is something that should be looked at.

Mr. Moloney said that when the chief executive was reappointed in 2011, he raised the two outstanding issues on the contract and that he wanted the chairman of that time to sort him out. I have sat on many different boards down through the years. How many times was it brought up over the following three or four years as to what progress was being made on those two issues? In terms of succession planning, in 2011 it obviously was the view of the board that a new CEO would be appointed in 2016. Was there ever a formal discussion over the following two or three years as to what was going to be done? If not, why not? As a man said to me once, a chairman's job is to appoint the right chief executive and then the chairman can sit back and enjoy the ride. I can understand that the chairman perceived that Mr. Kavanagh was the best man for the job and wanted him to be reappointed. However, there are questions over the way this was handled and on the whole issue of corporate governance. The chairman held up his hand and said there were things that were not done correctly and I accept that. However, I cannot understand why a board, 12 months after 2011, would not ask whether progress had been made on these two outstanding issues or whether they had been dealt with.

A point was made by Deputy D'Arcy about the indefinite contract. Was it always at the back of the board's mind that this was a fait accompliand there was virtually nothing it could do about it in any case? If that was the case, it should have been stated clearly. Dr. Osborne has said it was never raised as an issue that the contract was of an indefinite duration but surely the board must have had it at the back of its mind. How many times in the intervening years, between 2011 and 2016, was the issue of succession raised at the board? How many times was it brought up?