The owners of Punchestown Racecourse today proposed the sale of some land to secure the future of the national hunt venue.
Members of the Kildare Hunt Club (KHC) have been invited to attend an Extraordinary General Meeting on August 3rd to discuss the plan to sell off surplus lands to settle debts.
This is the latest move in a bid to resolve matters between KHC and Horse Racing Ireland, as well as GT Equinus, a Getty company, which is suing KHC-owned companies for sums of up to €4.2 million.
In a letter to members of the hunt club, backed by the hunt committee, trustees and KHC nominees on the Punchestown boards, chairman Matt Dempsey recommended the sale.
He said it is necessary to repay the outstanding debts, put the legal structures in place to implement a previously agreed Revenue settlement, and to secure the long-term future of racing and hunting at Punchestown.
Mr Dempsey says KHC is proposing this course of action "bearing in mind the good of Irish racing, Punchestown, our locality and the Kildare Hunt Club".
There are a total of 466 acres held in trust by the KHC at the Punchestown venue. Members of the US-based billionaire Getty family launched court action last month to secure the repayment of €4.2 million loaned to Punchestown racecourse.
They gave £3 million punts to the course in 1998 to help pay for its redevelopment. The loan was made under the passports for investment scheme, which saw the Government give Irish passports to individuals who made substantial investments in the Republic. The State has since ended the scheme.
Punchestown is Ireland's premier national hunt racecourse. Along with its April festival, it stages high-profile meetings throughout the winter and spring KHC owns the racecourse, which has been managed by Horse Racing Ireland since 2002 when it was facing financial difficulties.
The course has returned to profitability since 2002, and annual surpluses are now running at around €400,000 a year.
Its four-day national hunt festival in April broke all previous attendance and betting turnover records, and drew most of the leading horses from the previous month's Cheltenham festival. A report published in March, which was carried out by NUI Maynooth, found the Punchestown Racing Festival is worth about €43 million to the local economy.
Along with racing, it generates revenue from exhibitions and the two-day Oxegen rock festival that takes place there every summer.
PA