In June the IHRB commissioned forensic investigators Mazars to review the organisation, following the sudden departure of the body’s chief financial officer Donal O’Shea, who still remains on voluntary leave.

Mystery still surrounds the nature of O’Shea’s exit from the regulatory agency but CEO Darragh O’Loughlin finally confirmed that the issues did not concern a highly controversial payment to a former chief executive Denis Egan, who received €400,000 upon retirement in 2021.

Serious financial issues at IHRB were first made public on June 27 when the organisation was before the Public Accounts Committee, a meeting which ended in farce when it was announced that on legal advice the board would be unable to discuss the emerging crisis.

Since then O’Loughlin told last night’s hearing that Mazar’s had been going through six years of documents as part of their investigation, although he did concede he had expected it to be completed by now.

Since the situation at IHRB emerged, the body has not helped itself in building speculation about the nature of the Mazars probe, even last night the Committee Chair believed it centred around Denis Egan’s payment.

Public confirmation that the matters being looked at were separate came after the committee chairman told Darragh O’Loughlin that in his opening statement he had stated that matters being probed “did not appear to (centre on issues of) misappropriation or personal gain”.

“Surely to get more than was deemed appropriate for a chief executive’s salary was his personal gain – I presumed he benefited from the 58 per cent more?” asked Deputy Cahill in relation to the money paid to Egan, above what was considered acceptable at the time.

“I just find that the time lapse here to investigate the Governance of IHRB is, in my view, completely and utterly unacceptable,” said the Tipperary TD.

“There are serious questions here to be asked about how this happened and the time lag is definitely doing no good to anyone and definitely doing no good to the reputation of the IHRB.

“I’m not happy that this isn’t included (in the hearing) - I accept fully that you are new in your post, but when there are such issues of public concern, in my view, this report should be well finished at this stage and the recommendations thereon should be on the table.”

Darragh O’Louglin responded that “on the Mazars review, yes, it is taking longer than I also thought it would take”.

“It’s a very thorough review and as a result is time consuming – we provided Mazars with almost six years worth of our financial records, banking records, relevant personnel records and so on.”

Then stating that Denis Egan’s payment was not being probed, O’Loughlin added: “I don’t want to conflate the issue of concern akin to our knowledge of June of this year with the retirement of the former CEO.”

“The former CEO’s retirement package was outlined clearly in the annual report, in the financial statements for 2021 and there is controversy around the additional payment that he received, over and above the scheme that was in place at the time.

“We acknowledge that there was this controversy there, the additional monies that he received were paid by the turf club and the Irish National Hunt Steeplechase (Committee)’ weren’t state monies – there was no misapplication of state money.

“But there is very little I can say about what will be in the Mazars review because it has not yet concluded.”

The hearing also heard from Dr Lynn Hillyer, chief veterinarian at the IHRB, about 11 issues of doping within the horseracing industry this year, but did not reveal, nor was she asked to uncover the identities of those yards found in breach of regulations.

It is believed seven yards were at the centre of these findings, with at least one a repeat offender.