Revealed: confidential payouts to six Bord na gCon employees
The Irish Examiner has also learned that the Bord na gCon members who sit on the control committee - which oversees doping safeguards in the industry - have not received any minutes of their meetings for the past three years.
The control committee, chaired by Paschal Taggart, investigates doping allegations. However, it does not circulate minutes detailing its findings and penalties to its own members.
A well-placed source said: “A person takes notes at the meeting of the control committee but these minutes are not put before subsequent meetings for approval and inspection of the committee. There is no open record of decisions and findings.”
Mr Taggart last night confirmed that the committee does not circulate minutes for inspection and approval by its members.
He said they keep very detailed reports on cases they deal with.
The board yesterday confirmed they had reached a settlement with former chief executive Aidan Tynan, whose sacking last week has led to the setting up of a ministerial inquiry which will be undertaken by Tim Dalton, former secretary general of the Department of Justice.
Mr Tynan was sacked after he wrote to Sport Minister John O’Donoghue expressing concern at Bord na gCon’s decision not to publish details of a hearing in November.
The hearing had resulted in trainers Paul Hennessy and John Kiely being fined €1,000 each after two of their greyhounds tested positive for a banned performance-enhancing substance, EPO.
Mr Taggart said he agreed to suppress publication of the results, but did so in the interests of the industry.
As more details of internal upheavals within the State greyhound board emerge, it is believed that as many as six senior figures in Bord na gCon have cost the organisation in excess of €2 million in settlements and legal costs.
John Garrahy, the official who once was in charge of drug prevention in the sport, is understood to have received a six-figure sum when his High Court action against Mr Taggart was settled before it went to full hearing.
High Court documents reveal Mr Garrahy, a veterinary surgeon from Clonlara, Limerick, clashed with Mr Taggart after greyhound trainer Brendan Matthews, a friend of Mr Taggart’s, asked him to test a drug he was using to see if it complied with regulations. Mr Taggart approved the use of the board’s dope testing laboratory for the test. Mr Garrahy objected. He claimed in a High Court affidavit that his objections were overruled and the test went ahead.
The affidavit stated: “Mr Taggart telephoned me and left a message on my mobile phone ordering that Mr Matthews’s greyhound urine sample be tested secretly at the board’s laboratory because he (Mr Taggart) did not want any of his friends’ dogs being detected with positive drug samples.”
The Irish Examiner has also learned that one of the six former employees who received confidential settlements left Bord na gCon after raising concerns at ministerial level about the way the greyhound board was operating.
Mr Taggart last week rejected calls from the Labour Party to step aside pending Mr Dalton’s investigation.
