There has been many cases of wastage such as a director of racing governance & compliance on paid leave for years, an unnecessary sales & booking office in Thurles or even the cost of the Preferred Results report which provided the substance needed to get the RTE program made.

However this falls way short when you consider the IGB are getting over 300k every week from the government.

Our presentation in May 2017 to TDs highlighted that 31.42 million in prize money had been taken from greyhound owner / breeders over the period 2008 to 2015. But where did the money go the answer lies in the wage bill.

I have analysed the IGBs annual reports from 2005 to 2017 in terms of their employee costs and turnover from racing activities. It is analysed this way because the level of turnover from racing activities will affect the overall wage costs i.e. the busier the race meeting the more casual staff is required to man the tote, bars and the restaurant.

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The analysis clearly shows that during Paschal Taggarts time as chairman that the cost of running the IGB was around 16% of turnover from racing activities. From 2009 onwards this figure has continued to grow to a whopping 44.75% in 2017.

This decline in productivity coincides with the disgraced minister replacing Taggart with Dick OSullivan and then Simon Coveneys first ministerial board appointments [which] saw a key election organiser for his Cabinet colleague Phil Hogan installed as the chairman of the Irish Greyhound Board in Apr 2011 EXTERNAL LINK

The bottom line is that since Taggarts time as chairman, it has become 3 times more expensive for the IGB to run the greyhound industry. The IGB are running out of money but instead of addressing this decline in productivity, the IGB are allowing greyhound tracks to close.

Turkeys wont vote for Christmas

Hi Martin,

Let's concentrate on the 2017 figures as there is no point looking at the 2018 figures until the IGBs annual report for 2018 is published.

The link that you provided has total turnover from racing activities at 26.4 million for 2017.

However if you look at page 28 of the IGBs 2017 annual report, it states that total turnover from racing activities is 22.7 million.

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So the figures in your link for 2017s total turnover from racing activities are overstated by around 3.7 million assuming that the IGBs audited 2017 figures are correct.

With regard to the bottom line go again to page 28 of the IGBs 2017 annual report and scroll down to '(Deficit) / Surplus before taxation' and you see a figure of 310,287 which is very little when you consider that its for the whole greyhound industry.

That is why it is hard to understand the many cases of wastage such as a director of racing governance & compliance on paid leave for years, an unnecessary sales & booking office in Thurles or even the cost of the Preferred Results report which provided the substance needed to get the RTE program made.

Remember that the Preferred Results report was commissioned in 2017 at cost of 115k which is a big chunk of the industries 310k surplus.

The IGBs income is not going to increase in the short term due to the publics new adverse perception of greyhound racing. For example expect the IGBs Christmas party bookings to be disseminated this year.

Therefore their only option is to look at the Expenditure section on page 28. They have already cut the 479k for incentive schemes and the 340k for grant assistance to private tracks hence the Longford and Lifford closures. They cant cut the welfare related expenditures in the current environment so that leaves marketing and prize money.

The greyhound industry has been destroyed from within.

Im not a spreadsheet person so is it possible to tell where the 3Million for the planned Shelbourne refurb and 1 Million for Kilkenny refurb could be found.
Cash reserves?? at year end type
Of thing?
Post HX sale we were good to go on a lot of fronts was the belief

You shouldnt believe everything you read on Talking Dogs.

The HX sale paid the banks and anything left would have been wasted on commissioned reports, HR disputes and a booking office when restaurant booking should be taken online.

Cash reserves??? Put it this way in 2017 without the payment from the government, the greyhound industry would have made a loss of 15,689,713.

The IGB have allowed Longford to close over a 20k wiring bill but allow an unnecessary office in Thurles costing 300k pa to remain open.

Longford was very important to owner / breeders in the Midlands for starting off pups. If I still had greyhounds then I certainly wouldnt want them starting their racing careers running into that 3rd bend at Mullingar.

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How far are the owner / breeders in the North West going to have to travel to race their dogs with Liffords closure?

The IGB decision to cut the 340k for grant assistance to private tracks will result in a lot of owner / breeders leaving the sport in the midlands and north west of the country.

As I stated above, the greyhound industry has been destroyed from within.

So they could/should have cash reserves at end of 2018 but tracks will have closed in 2019 without any one in the owners ranks knowing the full picture.
Reading between the lines here(the quote next paragraph from the Minister) I think a 33% cut in tracks/owners/breeders might be on the agenda.

It is abundantly clear also that in terms of the State funding thats available to the industry some 16 million there needs to be a significant reorientation of that funding away from breeding towards greyhound welfare.

Or worse pull the funding, as Kieran states we need a rationalization plan for entire industry not just tracks and prize money. Our sport s business model is 15 to 20 years out of date. In a world when you can watch racing from anywhere in the world on your mobile phone screen tracks like Longford should play a major part, low overhead cost and opening doors is cheap and most importantly a good safe track.

Unfortunately instead of standing up for themselves people have had enough and are leaving sport in droves, and as for the people who should represent us the so called Federation or Renegades most genuine greyhound people have no respect for them and they certainly dont feel they are represented by them.

After a disgraced minister got rid of Paschal Taggart, the greyhound industry has become a political play thing where people were put in important positions for the industry on the basis of who they know and not what they know. It is akin to paying derby dog prices for A5 dogs and expecting your kennel to be competitive.

The greyhound industry competes in the competitive entertainment industry but is not run like the other industries that they are competing against. This has resulted in some of the worst financial returns in the history of the state. How the Department of Agriculture could have sit by and allow these financial returns without reacting beggars belief.

For example when the HRI realised that there was problems with the way the Curragh was been managed this summer, they immediately replaced the relevant manager and brought in a manager from Leopardstown. That does not happen in the greyhound industry which is why turnover from racing activities has collapsed from 62.6 million in 2005 to 22.7 million in 2017.

Over the last decade 31.42 million in prize money has been taken from the people who are responsible for looking after the greyhounds. It should not come as any surprise if that creates welfare issues like we saw in the RTE program.

They get paid from the IGB's turnover which in 2017 was 16m (greyhound fund) + 22.7m ( turnover from racing activities) + 1.7m (prizemoney contributions from owners & sponsors) + 0.08m (media & other income).

Remember there are then other costs such as tote payments to consider.

Check out page 28 on the following link - its all there.

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