Biggest greyhound event of year faces broadcast axe
Mail on Sunday, 4th August 2019
By Niamh Walsh

RTE’s live broadcast of this year’s Irish Greyhound Derby could be in jeopardy as top-level management are meeting to consider whether to televise the event following the RTE Investigates documentary on serious abuses in the industry.

The derby, the biggest race in the greyhound calendar, is due to start this month with the final in Shelbourne Park on September 21.

The Irish Mail on Sunday has learned that RTE’s senior management are in discussions about the planned broadcast of the semi-final and the final of this year’s Derby.

A spokesman for RTE told the MoS that no decision has been made.

The documentary - Greyhounds: Running for Their Lives - showed ex-racers shot in the head at Irish knackeries and exported to China, where they are boiled alive.

The programme led to widespread protests and picketing of greyhound stadiums and to top level sponsors pulling out.

On Tuesday, global holiday operator Thomas Cook became the ninth high-profile company to disassociate itself from greyhound racing when it announced it will no longer run fleets of foreign tourists to Shelbourne Park.

Thomas Cook’s French-based Jet Tours said it was “pleased” to cease the tours after the documentary was brought to its attention.

The programme revealed that the Irish Greyhound Board (IGB) paid consultancy firm Preferred Results Ltd €115,000 to prepare a business analysis report i in 2017.

It stated that 16,000 greyhounds are born each year, of which 5,987 are killed because they fail to make qualification times or their performance declines. The IGB publicly dismissed aspects of this report.

However, in June 2018, some nine months after the report was presented to the IGB, its chief executive Ger Dollard wrote a letter recommending Preferred Results Ltd and praising the “rigorous, thorough and professional way” the company undertook its work.

The MoS has seen this letter from Mr Dollard.

“Speaking as a newly appointed CEO, I found the report to be very useful. It told us what we needed to know, not what we wanted to here,” he said.

He said the report had the backing of IGB senior management “on the majority of the core recommendations” which were taken on board “and are having a significant positive impact”. However, when IGB chairman Frank Nyham came before the Dail last month, he said the IGB rejected the Preferred Results finding that 6,000 dogs were culled annually and insisted that no action was taken upon receiving the report.

Questioned by Labour TD Willie Penrose, he said the report “was unused and not applied because we did not agree with its analysis”.

Pressed on why it had been kept from Agriculture Minister Michael Creed, Mr Nyham said: “He never asked for it.”

Responding to queries from the MoS on the apparent contradictions between Mr Dollard’s letter and what Mr Nyham told the Dail, an IGB spokesman said this week that Mr Dollard was referring to the “business model” analysis, not the “dog pool analysis”, which was not part of the brief.

“The IGB did not accept the analysis as it did not have a valid empirical basis,” the spokesman said. The IGB is refusing to release the report.

The MoS has also learned that the new 24/7 confidential line for reporting greyhound welfare concerns is not manned. The IGB said it had received 43 calls/emails since it was set up last month, 16 of which do not relate to greyhound welfare. The IGB spokesman said all callers were responded to the same day, contradicting claims by callers who cited a three-day wait.

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ICABS ACTION ALERT

Urge RTE to permanently end its coverage of greyhound racing.

Tel: +353 (0)1 208 3111

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