Calls for stud board to resign rejected

BRENDAN SMITH has rejected calls for the board of the Irish National Stud to resign because of the “cloud hanging over” it in the wake of expenses revelations.

Mr Smith has appointed two new directors to the board and a further four appointments will be made in coming weeks of experts in bloodstock, finance and the law.

Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Michael Creed had called for the board’s resignation, apart from the two new appointees, because of the “magnitude of the failure of corporate governance” at the stud in Co Kildare.

He said in the Dáil that the “cloud hanging over the remainder of the board requires that it now tender its resignation” in the wake of revelations that the semi-State company spent more than €800,000 on travel over an eight-year period for its former chief executive and his spouse.

Mr Creed said he was not casting aspersions on individual board members but was pointing to a “collective failure of corporate governance which has serious implications for the industry and its reputation”, one of “the few areas in which we distinguish ourselves internationally”.

But rejecting the call for a new board, Mr Smith said the chairman “has assured me that the company has in the past and will continue in the future to comply with the code of practice for the governance of State bodies”.

The Minister will “shortly” receive a report on the financial position of the company and under new corporate governance requirements, an “eminent external person has been appointed” to the audit committee.

Mr Smith said he first became aware of the expenses issue after a report in The Irish Times on September 18th, 2009, which highlighted travel expenses incurred by the then CEO.

He said the chairman of the stud was “satisfied” that the expenses were approved and judged “necessary for the conduct of the business of the company” and that “no first-class travel had been incurred.

Receipted expenses show that in November 2006 return flights to Paris cost more than €2,300 for the then chief executive and his spouse. In 2002 return flights for one trip to Paris cost more than €1,600 and flights to Milan in September 2003 cost more than €1,300. Mr Smith told the Dáil the board “has since revised its travel policy with a view to achieving greater efficiencies”.

Mr Creed said it was about more than the recent “Fás-like expenses regime or industrial relations issue” about harassment and bullying. There was a Garda inquiry some years ago about the disappearance of cattle which “ran into the ground”, he said.