Corporate fire-fighting revealed

After spending a year resisting the publication of its chairman’s expenses, the Irish Greyhound Board has said it now has no problem with the release of the information.

On the instruction of the information commissioner, the IGB published the returns of its chair, Phil Meaney, for his first 15 months in office.

And, after considering the matter, the IGB decided to release the rest of the board’s claims and their immediate predecessors. This action has revealed two issues.

The itemised records of the current chairman have documented, for the first time, the work of the non-executive post.

They also showed the corporate fire-fighting that has been going on since the company was first hit by doping, race fixing and financial scandals in May 2012.

Meanwhile, the former directors’ records have shown that, until 2009, the expenses claimed were much higher.

Firstly, to Mr Meaney’s returns: He was appointed to the €21,000-a-year post by Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney within days of the Government taking office.

Within 12 months, the Carlow businessman had claimed €15,468.

Mr Meaney, an election organiser for Envitonment Minister Phil Hogan, has travelled extensively.

He has held numerous meetings with other board members and company staff outside of the scheduled events. He attended funerals for industry figures such as Rose Desmond, the mother of his former colleague at the Irish Coursing Club, Jerry Desmond.

He also was on hand at a Fine Gael benefit night at the track in Enniscorthy.

On some occasions, like on July 12, 2012, he made two trips in one day — departing Carlow for Portlaoise at 9am and returning to Carlow for an hour at 4pm before driving to a race meeting in Dundalk — 520km in one day.

The same month, he travelled for meetings with the internal investigators involved in the controversial report into race-fixing in Dundalk. This was immediately prior to the publication of their critical first draft.

Mr Meaney issued a statement to explain his returns and said they were subject to internal and external audit.

“I can confirm that I have attended some funerals of industry figures or those related, in my capacity as IGB chairman,” he said.

“I did attend a Fine Gael fundraiser in Wexford, having been invited. The event was a greyhound meeting and it is not unusual for chairmen of the IGB to attend greyhound racing.

“I have made a point of meeting IGB directors outside of board meetings from time to time and have made a particular effort to attend each of the 17 stadia around the country to meet the staff concerned since I took up office.”

After releasing the chairman’s records, the board took the decision to also give a breakdown for each of the years back to 2007.

These showed that, while directors claimed €56,201 last year, the previous board received more than €135,000 in both 2007 and 2008.

The highest claimant was former Fianna Fáil senator and retired teacher Tony McKenna.

This director, who was also chair of the company’s audit committee, got €51,252 in 2007 and €47,294 in 2008.

Yesterday, he said he had retired and had more time to work on behalf of the IGB.

The IGB had rebuffed previous attempts to have the expenses disclosed.

It had already got an Freedom of Information request for this information earlier this year from the Greyhound Owners and Breeders Federation.

However, this request was not dealt with.

In Aug 2009, the board considered another request but said it would result in fees to cover the retrieval.

At the same meeting, a report was privately circulated that said the total amount of expenses by directors had hit €63,000, which was €25,000 over budget.

Board minutes recorded that Mr McKenna and Frank O’Connell left the meeting for this part of the discussion.

The company was already in a precarious state when the issue was raised in 2009.

The next item on the agenda was a redundancy programme that had seen head office staff reduced from 42 to 23 over the same two-year period.