1. When a trainer gets a positive test it is published.

2. The trainer can then appeal against the finding and continue to train and race the dog until a decision is made by the courts.

3. If the courts rule against the trainer the IGB can then go ahead and hold a hearing into the positive test.

Ok, this seems from an outsiders perspective to be crazy. Firstly once the results of a positive are published the trainer is automatically deemed guilty by social media and put under immense pressure as is their family and the owner even though they may be innocent. Also anyone would posts on social media that the trainer is a cheat would also be liable for legal action as at this time it has not been proven.

When the police investigate a crime they do not publish the evidence, they wait for the hearing.

Surely any trainer with a positive should be suspended as well as the greyhound involved until a hearing is held. If they are found guilty and wish to appeal the trainer should still be suspended but not the greyhound. The hearing should always take place within 4 weeks.

Does this make sense or am I missing something?

Documents show that Sen Foghl, secretary general of the Department of Education, told the PAC last year that its offer of 23 million was based on an assessment of the site by the Valuation Office as required when property is being transferred between two state bodies. He claimed that a circular issued by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform set out that the market value determined by the Valuation Office was binding. Its value of 23 million was provided in April last year, one month after Savills valuation of 12 million.

Documents show that the Valuation Office based its price on the fact that there was restrictive zoning on the site and a necessity to obtain a change in zoning to facilitate the construction of schools together with the cost of demolishing existing structures.

An internal document from IGB showed that its directors had expressed disappointment at Savills valuation at a board meeting in March last year. Savills had said that the site could also appeal to parties interested in providing student accommodation or sports clubs as well as a number of semi-state bodies.

The sale of the Harolds Cross track was one of the key recommendations of the 2014 Indecon report on the future of greyhound racing, which was commissioned by the government because of the deteriorating financial position of IGB. The greyhound board had amassed total debts of 21.3 million by the end of 2016. This was largely linked to the expenditure of 21 million on a project to develop a new stadium in Limerick which never went ahead.

In a letter to Michael Creed, the agriculture minister, in May last year, Sen Brady, the interim IGB chief executive at the time, said that its enormous debt level, interest on bank borrowings and repayment on loans was restricting the board from meeting its statutory objectives as a semi-state body.

Dr Brady described the sale of Harolds Cross as the key cornerstone for the future viability and planned rebuilding of the greyhound industry.

He informed the minister that the ability of the board to keep trading was at the discretion of AIB, which had a lien over all the boards assets.

The sale of Harolds Cross is absolutely essential to avoid the IGB becoming insolvent, Dr Brady said.

He told Mr Creed that the acceptance of the offer from the Department of Education had the potential to regenerate all elements of the greyhound industry following a decade of decline.

The Harolds Cross track first opened in 1928, but racing ceased there in February of last year after the decision by the greyhound board to address its debts, which led to a six-month boycott by trainers and breeders of racing dogs at Shelbourne Park, the only remaining greyhound track left in Dublin.

All those feeble excuses the IGB used to Justify the sale of HX, they were all porkies, now they are in the news papers and on Live National TV over the strokes that were pulled by their friends in politics, the truth of the matter is quite clear, HX was the only way out for the IGB to stay in business and clear their colossal Debt, Now that the board have got rid of a major asset and paid off the bulk of debt they think their debt ridden days are over, not quite IMO this board have not got the indicative to clean up this sport and clear out the drug cheats therefore more people will leave the sport & less people will go to the tracks that are left open & less people will breed, we learn each day of some sort of drug related crime that has been committed within our industry either here in Ireland or in the UK, this will be public knowledge soon, this type of news will drive more people away with no chance of returning thus costing the IGB more & more money, our big sponsors are nearly all gone not because of money problems but because of serious drug problems in our sport and the culprits responsible for this are still here racing away and collecting the prize money while the people with the big sacks of sponsorship money are gone for good, the wrong people are gone IMO and its time the IGB cleaned their dirty slate before someone else cleans it for them IMO.

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I personally think this review should be carried out by the board and put the thousands of euros which it is going to cost us to better use, we have 5/6 individuals on over 100 grand per year on the board they should be well able to conduct this review themselves and if not why not, why are they paid over 100k and not able to conduct a simple review of their own industry, madness IMHO.

Greyhound racing has a doping problem, says broadcaster

March 3, 2019 at 2:08 pm
It is old news but the IGOBF have repeatedly warned that the standard of integrity in the Irish greyhound industry is not acceptable to todays punters. SIS has now officially pointed out this lack of integrity to the IGB. This lack of integrity devalues our product and has a direct impact on greyhound owners as it reduces the amount of money available for prize money.

The CEO of The IGB is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product being produced, this criticism of the industry by SIS will add to the chorus of voices that question the ability of the CEO to right the industry.

This article was printed in The Times last Thursday Feb 28. There were some readers comments posted at the end.
Aaron Rogan, February 28 2019, 12:
The company that broadcasts Irish greyhound racing to betting shops around the world has told the sports governing body that it has a serious integrity problem because of doping and irregular betting patterns.

Sports Information Services (SIS) raised its concerns at a meeting with the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) in October at which a representative of the company gave a damning assessment of the sport in Ireland.

The main issues with Irish greyhound racing are high-profile integrity issues such as positive tests and betting incidents, which serve to undermine turnover at Irish tracks, an SIS representative said. The key challenge in selling Irish greyhound racing is a consumer lack of confidence.

SIS buys licensing rights to sports and sells them to the betting industry. The criticisms of Irish dog racing, which receives state funding, were made at a meeting to discuss the establishment of early morning meetings at tracks in Kilkenny and Waterford. The races, the first of which is at 8.18am, began as a trial in December, and they are broadcast to bookmakers globally.

Redacted minutes of the meeting released to The Times showed that Frank Nyhan, chairman of the IGB, said that the board was barely breaking even from its deal with SIS and would not be able to provide more races unless the terms improved.

An SIS representative, whose name was redacted, said that the sport was struggling because gamblers and journalists did not trust it.

The SIS employee raised the issues of doping, irregular betting and the availability of private trials at which owners were given access to racetracks to run dogs without the result being made public or put on the race card. This allowed owners and trainers to enter dogs into races without their recent form being available to bookmakers or punters. This is not the case in England, where all official trials on racetracks are recorded on the race card when the dog is entered into a race.

There is concern in the bookmaking industry that such private trials allow for big bets to be organised with insider knowledge and has made most major bookmakers stop taking large bets on Irish races.

The minutes of Octobers meeting show that the SIS employee was responding to Mr Nyhans complaint about the terms of the SIS deal. The employee emphasised the elements of integrity embedded in the product, namely the ongoing issue with private trials, positive tests and betting incidents, which affect journalists perception of Irish greyhound racing and therefore consumer confidence and behaviour which will take time to resolve.

SIS said that the lack of confidence in Irish racing made it less attractive in the UK and unless that confidence was improved the number of Irish races broadcast would not increase.

The IGB is a semi-state body and has received more than 100 million from the tax payer in the past decade at a time when it has faced criticism over its corporate governance, doping controls and animal welfare sanctions. It will receive 16.8 million this year after the government agreed to an 800,000 increase.

The average attendence at races in 2014 was 371 and the sport has struggled to attract people to stadiums in recent years, which has led to declining finances at the IGB. It has appointed consultants to examine the financial sustainability of its 16 stadiums and a report is due later this year.

A controversy erupted last year when The Times reported that the 23 million paid by the Department of Education for a former track at Harolds Cross, Dublin, was more than twice the value of between 6 and 12 million given by consultants acting for the IGB. At the time IGB, otherwise known as Bord na gCon, had debts of more than 21 million and the money provided by the department exceeded this amount. There have also been concerns about the failure of the IGB to inform the Department of Agriculture immediately after it became aware that a prized greyhound had tested positive for cocaine in 2017. The departments investigations unit was not informed until days after the test, which reduced the ability of investigators to conduct an unannounced search.

A spokesman for the IGB told The Times that it spent approximately 2 million on regulation and welfare last year. He said that the Greyhound Industry Bill, which is at committee stage in the Dil, would improve the regulation of the sport.

This legislative framework, when passed, will allow the IGB to maintain the regulatory initiatives already in place, as mentioned, as well as implementing further progressive measures to allay any public concerns that may exist on industry regulation.

A spokesman for SIS said: We are confident that all the tracks on the SIS greyhound service comply with our strict integrity standards to provide a robust and fair betting product.

The IGB say they spent 2 million on Regulation & Welfare, where exactly has this money been spent??? is it on suppling Taxis from Galway to Dublin for those in the retired Greyhound trust to eat a free feed in the Shelbourne restaurant??? Or to travel around the Globe in style, stay in plush hotels abroad & in Cork??? it certainly has not gone into Regulation. Our Regulation Department is not & has never been fit for purpose and it needs a radical overhauling to say the least IMHO, a pure disgrace nothing else.