Olympic scandal: ‘Ireland is being tarnished by these events’

There are significant issues that the Attorney General and Minister for Sport will have to address over the Olympic Council of Ireland, Fianna Fáil sport spokesman Timmy Dooley has said.

Mr Dooley's comments come as the Olympic Council of Ireland vowed to defend itself "to the hilt" following the arrest of its president Pat Hickey in Rio.

Current acting president of the Olympic Council of Ireland Willie O’Brien said the organisation will defend itself “to the hilt” after visiting Mr Hickey in Samaritano Hospital.

The programme played a clip of him speaking to reporters outside the hospital. He said Mr Hickey had undergone medical tests but was in a stable condition.

He added that Mr Hickey had made no comment to him about the allegations during his visit.

“We have very little, restricted access to him. That’s all I can tell you for the present.”

Mr O’Brien confirmed that he has taken over the position of president of the OCI while the investigation is completed.

“We can’t make any comment while the legal case is going on here. We will defend ourselves to the hilt. That’s all I can say at the moment”

When asked by a reporter if that meant defending Mr Hickey too, he said — “exactly, yeah.”

Fianna Fáil’s Mr Dooley said “there are questions that the Revenue Commissioners could assist with and also the Director of Corporate Enforcement about whether appropriate due process was involved around the choice of ticket sellers.

“We need to get to the bottom of this. The image of Ireland is being tarnished by these events,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.

He said the question remained were there potential breaches of the law in Ireland. He also queried the issue of the governance of sport. “There are more serious issues here than the arrest of Pat Hickey.”

Mr Dooley said the questions that needed to be answered were: was there an open tendering process for the ticket selling; what entity would profit and why was Pro10 chosen when they had no history “of this type of work”.

He added that he had been “stunned by the naivety” of the Minister for Sport to expect to get answers from Mr Hickey. “There was going to be only one outcome, that was a bloody nose. He learned that lesson quickly.”

The Clare TD said it was sad that the focus had been taken off Irish sports people and their great achievements.

He added that it was clear that most people have lost faith in the International Olympic Committee following issues such as allowing the participation of the Russians, the “whole boxing issue” and the question of probity within the IOC.

Mr Hickey has temporarily stepped aside as president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) and all other Olympic roles following his arrest yesterday in Brazil, accused of involvement in ticket touting.

On Wednesday night, he remained under medical observation in a Rio hospital – after claiming to be ill – following his arrest by the police unit investigating alleged ticket touting at the Olympic Games in the city.

An Irish man and a translator were arrested earlier this month in Rio and about 800 tickets seized, some of which came from the OCI’s allocation.