OCI chief Hickey launches ‘explosive’ attack on Sports Council

THE simmering row that has scarred relations between two of Irish sport’s most important bodies blazed back to life yesterday when Pat Hickey launched an astonishing broadside at the Irish Sports Council (ISC).

The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) president was addressing an Oireachtas joint committee on sport when he delivered a statement that was described as “explosive” by Senator Jerry Buttimer and a “broadside” by Deputy Mary Upton.

Committee chairman Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher said that he had been “taken aback” by it and he had even felt the need to interrupt Hickey’s statement to remind him that he was not speaking under parliamentary privilege.