Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 29 June 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements 2021: Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board

9:30 am

Mr. Darragh O'Loughlin:

Our integrity expenses, and this is note seven to the financial statements, are very much geared to activity levels and the Deputy is correct there was a Covid-19 impact at that time. The impact in 2020, however, had been greater. In 2021, we had almost a full card of race meetings, with 395, whereas we had significantly fewer the previous year. As a result, our officials, our vets and our security teams had to travel further to more race meetings and therefore our motoring expenses, which are paid at no more than the Revenue-approved rates, would have been higher simply because more people had to go to work in more locations for more race meetings.