Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 6 November 2024
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Governance Issues: Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (Resumed)
5:30 pm
Mr. Darragh O'Loughlin:
At the time, there was a single scheme which was called a voluntary redundancy and early retirement scheme. People will go out on either voluntary redundancy or early retirement. What Mazars has found, however, is that because the package agreed with the CEO at the time was greater than the scheme rules allowed for, and, as Mazars has written in its report, because it was not sanctioned in writing by HRI, it did not comply with the terms of that scheme and, according to Mazars, should not have been reported as part of the scheme. Our financial statements for 2021, however, were audited, and in the audit report it was disclosed exactly how much had been paid to the retiring CEO. Then, as regards the three redundancies, there was one figure given for the scheme, and Mazars has said now, in 2024, that the way in which it was disclosed in the financial statements for 2021 was not correct, in its opinion. At the time, however, the auditors audited and they disclosed the payment that was made to the then former CEO.