- Ballooning costs at HRI should be investigated by Dail Public Accounts Committee
- Breaches of FOI legislation by HRI are very clear
The Irish Bookmakers Association (IBA) has described the response from Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) to the call for a value-for-money investigation into all HRI spending as pure spin and a disingenuous attempt to shift focus away from the body.
Some of the key examples of HRI spin include:
- Spin: HRI stated that Ireland has the lowest rate of betting tax in the world comparing the situation here with a range of countries including France and the UK.
- Fact: This is totally disingenuous. PMU in France operates a parimutual/tote monopoly which has the margin built into their payout while the UK operators pay a Gross Profit Tax. In 2007 the Government introduced a tax on all Turnover to be borne by the bookmaker, this has to be bore by the operator and typically this equates to a 10% tax on Gross Win.
- Spin: HRI stated that betting is not subject to VAT.
- Fact: VAT is not applied to betting anywhere in Europe, and betting shops pay VAT on any of their business expenditure that requires VAT and cannot reclaim any of this VAT unlike most other businesses.
- Spin: HRI attempted to justify massive increases in spending by claiming that, as it assumed all functions of the Irish Horseracing Authority, many functions of the Turf Club, and with Tipperary and Fairyhouse added to its racecourse division, its responsibilities and workload had greatly increased over this period.
- Fact: Taking over the functions of various bodies should streamline procedures and introduce efficiencies - this clearly has not been the case at HRI which has seen costs and spending balloon across the board.
- Spin: HRI says that it is not in breach of Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation, which HRI has always operated effectively without any issues arising.
- Fact: HRI issued a blanket refusal to the first IBA request for information. The HRI failed to comply with the express duty imposed on public bodies by section 6(2) of the Act to give reasonable assistance to persons seeking records under the Act. Section 10(2) of the Act also states that a request cannot be refused unless the head of the public body has assisted or offered to assist the requester to amend the request.
"The attempts by HRI to distract attention from massive spending increases at the organisation are transparent, disingenuous and rely entirely on spin. However, the facts of the matter are very different.
"The increases in HRI spending that the IBA has exposed range from 56.6% to over 660% - the HRI has attempted to justify increases in spending by saying that fixtures have increased by 33% between 1998 and 2008, but the massive increases in spending are out of all proportion with the modest increase in fixture numbers.
"An investigation by the Dail Public Accounts Committee in respect of this spending would be appropriate. The IBA believes that all spending must deliver real and tangible benefits for Ireland's racing and betting sector, and that common sense reforms are urgently needed.
"These reforms include making better use during winter of Ireland's only all-weather facility at Dundalk, introducing changes in race scheduling so fixtures do not clash, and reviewing the excessive prize monies that apply for some races so that more race meetings can be introduced."
