Controller & Auditor General’s report response by Greyhound Racing Ireland

Rásaíocht Con Éireann (Greyhound Racing Ireland) notes the publication of the Comptroller & Auditor General’s report on the Limerick Greyhound Stadium development, which also accommodates the Head office and facilities for the Greyhound Industry.
 
Rásaíocht Con Éireann has already implemented the five recommendations included in this forty five page report.
 
The Limerick project has delivered a state of the art facility which had helped to stabilise and consolidate key elements in the local greyhound industry. It has created a platform for increased racing attendances against the backdrop of improving economic conditions. The facilities held in head office also provides the infrastructure for significant commercial exploitation for the entire Irish greyhound racing product internationally in the coming years.
 
Through its current Board and executive, Greyhound Racing Ireland last week issued a comprehensive response to the Indecon Report, an independent consultant’s review of the work of the Board and the Industry, which was published last July. Indecon outlined twenty seven recommendations on finance, governance, regulation and animal welfare. Rásaíocht Con Éireann has presented a series of time-lined proposals to implement the recommendations to the Minister for State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Tom Hayes T.D.

In its response, Greyhound Racing Ireland outlines plans to return the financial performance of the group to an operating profit of €3.5 million and a reduction of bank borrowings to a level appropriate to the Board’s business model by the end of 2017. This will be achieved by an integrated programme of measures including the internationalisation of the Irish racing product through co-mingling and streaming, the development of alternative sources of income at stadia and the disposal of core and non-core assets. This latter element will include the sale of Harold’s Cross, one of GRI’s two Dublin stadia, and a number of properties and land banks in Cork and Limerick, at a time appropriate to maximise commercial return on the assets.

The full text of GRI’s response to Indecon can be found on: http://www.grireland.ie/top-nav-corporate/news/igb-reply-to-the-indecon-report/