The IHRB receives public funding — €10.2m in taxpayers’ money in 2021, and now approximately €16m — which is routed to the IHRB through Horse Racing Ireland (HRI).

Regarding the issue raised at the PAC, HRI chief executive Suzanne Eade said she would support the IHRB, but the HRI in-tray is filling up rapidly.

It was dragged into the RTÉ scandal when Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy revealed that HRI had paid 2FM’s Doireann Garrihy €20,000 to promote horse racing at Cheltenham — an event in a different jurisdiction, as Ms Murphy pointed out. Whether it is appropriate or not for Irish taxpayers’ money to be paid to promote British horseracing events is an issue likely to be raised at a future PAC meeting, as is the substance of a story which ran in The Journal yesterday.

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Labour Party TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has complained that ‘influencer teachers’ have posted videos on social media which show them using materials provided by Horse Racing Ireland in classrooms, such as HRI’s The Road to Racing Primary School Programme.

In commenting on the matter, the Department of Education said “it would not generally be appropriate for commercial content to be shot on school property”, but such decisions were made on a local basis. If those teachers are receiving payments for those videos, then the department may have to examine this situation more closely.

Last May, HRI wrote to the minister for agriculture seeking an increase in funding, but these recent developments do not show the horse racing industry in a particularly flattering light. 

They certainly raise questions about how it uses the funds it does receive.