THE Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board [IHRB] should not be providing administration services for jockeys’ charities, says Irish Injured Jockeys [IIJ] general manager Michael Higgins.

A review of the IHRB’s involvement in the operation of the Jockeys Emergency Fund [JEF] and other similar charities is set to carried out in the new year.

This follows the publication this week of the long-awaited report by consultants Forvis Mazars into irregularities in the IHRB accounts for 2022. The report found that the IHRB breached the Charities Act by taking €350,000 from the Jockeys Emergency Fund [JEF] in January 2022 due to a cash shortfall. The money was paid back in April 2022.

The JEF is a registered charity set up to provide assistance to riders who suffer permanent total paralysis as a result of an injury sustained while race-riding.

It is one of at least six charities or schemes currently offering financial assistance to jockeys, past and present, and their dependents.

Set up 10 years ago, Irish Injured Jockeys has arguably a higher profile than the other funds. It is a charity and is 100% funded by donations from the public.

Asked if IIJ would be prepared to take on the administration of the JEF, Michael Higgins said: “The short answer is ‘yes’. We have told the IHRB that we feel there would be some definite benefits to organising the charities and funds in a more efficient way. It would be an improvement for the jockeys and it would improve public perception.

“We hope that this week’s report proves a catalyst for change. The IHRB is the sport’s regulator and is not best placed to administer a charitable fund. We believe we can be part of that solution.”

Inherited practice

IHRB chief executive Darragh O’Loughlin accepts that it is an “anomalous situation” that the racing regulatory body should be providing administration services for charities but, addressing an Oireachtas Committee this week, he explained that the IHRB - when it was established in 2018 - had inherited this as a custom and practice from the Turf Club.

He noted that IHRB staff only provide the administrative service, not the decision-making for the charities. He said that he is satisfied that the measures that the IHRB have put in place meet the recommendations in the immediate term, but added that “ultimately we need to take a higher level view and ask ourselves if it is appropriate for us as a regulatory body to be administering charities, albeit in a related area”.

He went on: “It would not be the right thing for us to simply cut those charities adrift… but in the new year we have to go back and look at the effectiveness of the measures we are putting in place now and come up with a sustainable model that provides the right level of accountability and transparency and the right safeguards as well ... to strengthen the governance and ensure we have the right level of segregation between entities and between accounts.”

The IHRB told The Irish Field that once any such review has been completed, “the IHRB will engage with the trustees of the charities involved and it will be for the trustees of those entities to determine the appropriate next steps which we will support them in implementing.”

Running to 19 pages and produced at a cost of €80,000, the Forvis Mazars report stopped short of explicitly linking the improper bank transfer of €350,000 in January 2022 with the retirement payment of €385,000 made to outgoing chief executive Denis Egan four months earlier.

Donal O’Shea, the former IHRB chief financial officer, told the consultants that the transfer was “motivated by urgent cashflow pressures in order to pay monthly salaries in the context where monthly HRI funding had not yet been received.”

Forvis Mazars concluded: “We consider that the IHRB board and executive should have foreseen potential cashflow challenges arising on foot of making redundancy and retirement payments in the absence of corresponding funding being received.”

The €350,000 was returned to the JEF bank account at the end of April 2022 “following further cashflow challenges experienced by the IHRB.”