Greyhound board spends more than €2m on employees' travel expenses

Salaries paid out by Greyhound Racing Ireland have fallen by more than 40% across 2020. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

The State body with responsibility for greyhound racing incurred some €2.1m in domestic travel expenses for employees from 2016 to 2019.

New figures show that Greyhound Racing Ireland (formerly known as the Irish Greyhound Board) spent €2.26m subsidising such travel from the start of 2016 to date in 2020.

Travel expenses for 2020 to date have amounted to just €108,000, with an additional €34,000 paid for members of the board. Just €8,297 was paid in international travel expenses this year.

It is unclear exactly what travel the bulk of these domestic expenses covers. GRI declined to comment directly on the nature of those expenses, saying it “publishes detailed information on salaries and travel expenses as part of its annual report each year”.

However the organisation’s annual report for 2019 details no more granular information regarding those expenses than was contained in the five-year figure, first delivered to Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy via a reply to a parliamentary question.

Without State subvention the greyhound racing sector would not be viable. If you take prize money paid out, no track in Ireland is viable. No dividend has been paid by industry to the State in 25 years. @CathMurphyTD #DefundGreyhoundRacing pic.twitter.com/5VlhayltaI

— Social Democrats (@SocDems) November 25, 2020

“Rasaiocht Con Éireann appears before the Public Accounts Committee when requested to do so and deals with all queries relating to its accounts,” a spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, salaries paid out by GRI have fallen by more than 40% during 2020, most likely due to the lack of casual staff being retained for race nights during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Total salary outlay in 2020 as at early November was €4.8m, compared to €8.2m for the full year 2019.

All told, €39m has been paid to full- and part-time staff at the commercial semi-State body since the beginning of 2016. Between then and the end of 2019, overall payroll expenses dropped by just under €1m from €9.1m.

In 2019, GRI had 125 full-time staff, and 112 full-time-equivalent casual employees, translating to as many as 700 at peak times, the organisation said.

.@OCallaghanCian and @HollyCairnsTD on the plinth of Leinster House this morning. Raising the issues of the difficulty in accessing emergency accommodation and the defunding of Greyhound Racing Ireland. pic.twitter.com/ODkLXYBqrm

— Catherine Murphy (@CathMurphyTD) December 1, 2020

The majority of employees earn less than €50,000, with 19 paid under €75,000, five earning between €75,000 and €125,000, and one earning between €150,000 and €175,000.

There are currently just five members on the GRI board, with Gary Brown having resigned his position in February of this year.

Some €300,810 in board remuneration was paid between 2016 and to date in 2020, with €183,019 in expenses for those members paid over the same timeframe.

€19.2 million for Irish Greyhound racing for 2021. Classic Ireland https://t.co/Qv2zYsj9lV

— danish naval (@MichaelTheMon) December 3, 2020

Chief executive Gerard Dollard, who took over the role in late 2017, was paid €133,000 per annum in 2018 and 2019, with a further €33,230 in pension contributions, according to the organisation’s 2019 report, which was launched in mid-November.

The body paid no corporation tax in either 2018 or 2019 “due to current and prior year trading losses in the Board’s subsidiary companies”, the report stated.

The board of GRI is expected to be summoned before the Public Accounts Committee in the coming weeks, after the Dáil voted to increase its statutory allowance by €2.4m to €19.2m in 2021.