CEO Dearbhla O'Brien to depart greyhound racing body after just eight months

Dearbhla O'Brien will leave her job at the end of September. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

The chief executive of Ireland’s greyhound board is to leave her position after just eight months in the job.

Greyhound Racing Ireland (GRI) chief Dearbhla O’Brien, the former CEO of WorkandTravel.ie, will leave her job at the end of September, just under a year after she was first proposed for the role.

It’s understood that Philip Peake, the former deputy CEO of Greyhound Racing Ireland, has also left the body, which received €17.6 million in State funding for 2022.

Frank Nyhan, chair of GRI, confirmed that Ms O’Brien is to leave her post on September 20 and said that he believes she “is following an offer back to her previous business, the travel business”. GRI did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms O'Brien had replaced Gerard Dollard as head of the organisation, who left in September 2021 after four years at the helm.

On Friday, July 22, she had informed the Public Accounts Committee that both she and Mr Nyhan would not be available to appear at the PAC in mid-September due to the proposed dates clashing with the Irish Greyhound Derby semi-finals and finals.

She suggested that on the following week, beginning September 26, both she and Mr Nyhan “would be available to appear”.

Before founding WorkandTravel.ie in 2019, Ms O’Brien worked as managing director with student travel company Usit from 2010.

Upon being announced for the GRI role last year she was hailed by Mr Nyhan for her “organisational values, vision, communication skills, and commercial and marketing knowledge”.

When accepting the job Ms O’Brien said she would focus on “developing a strategy towards restoring attendance levels at race meetings closer to pre-pandemic levels”.

Last month, Ms O’Brien declined to release details of attendance levels at the board’s sole Dublin track, Shelbourne Park in south Dublin, due to issues regarding commercial sensitivity.