OCI treasurer Kevin Kilty the latest to resign

The executive committee of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) continues to unravel with the resignation of Kevin Kilty, the honorary treasurer who also served as the chef de mission for the Rio Olympics.

Kilty’s letter of resignation is expected to be read out at tomorrow evening’s meeting of the executive committee, which is also set to discuss the independent report into the OCI’s governance arrangements.

That report, carried out independently by international accounting firm Deloitte, was commissioned last month by the OCI’s three-person crisis management subcommittee and is now complete.

Kilty's departure follows the resignation on Tuesday evening of OCI second vice-president and fellow executive committee member John Delaney with "immediate effect".

In citing the reasons for his resignation, Delaney, the long-serving chief executive of the FAI, claimed that despite being a member of the executive committee since 2005, he was “never active in the day-to-day running of the OCI”.

When contacted by The Irish Times, Kilty was unavailable for comment.

Aged 50, he has been a member of the OCI since 2008, and was hand-picked by Pat Hickey, the OCI's president, for the role of chef de mission in Rio.

Hickey has stepped aside from the role of president pending the police investigation in Brazil into various charges of ticket touting and ambush marketing. He remains in Rio on bail awaiting a trial date.

Kilty served as OCI shooting team leader in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, and in early 2013 was named as chef de mission for Rio, replacing Sonia O’Sullivan, who fulfilled the role in London.

Kilty was also the first Irishman to be elected onto the 13-member executive committee of the international shooting board.

Although not directly implicated in the ticket-touting charges, Kilty was called in for questioning by the Brazilian police on the final day of the Rio Games, along with the OCI chief executive Stephen Martin and honorary general secretary Dermot Henihan.

Unused tickets

It was reported police also recovered 228 unused tickets from Ireland’s allocation for the Games at the time, and while all three had their passports confiscated, they were released after questioning without any charges.

During the course of those interviews, however, it emerged that both Kilty and Martin had identified Hickey as “the big chief of this gang”.

According to police chief Ronaldo de Oliviera, testimony from Kilty and Martin "confirmed the role of Patrick Hickey as the big chief of this gang. This was very important. That all the actions were carried out by him".

The timing of Kilty’s resignation from the original 13-member executive committee, like that of Delaney, coincides with the completion of the Deloitte report.

It was commissioned on September 9th by the OCI's three-person crisis management sub-committee (Sarah Keane of Swim Ireland, Ciaran Ó Cathain of Athletics Ireland, and Robert Norwood of Snowsports Association of Ireland) to conduct "an independent review of the OCI's governance arrangements under its current Constitution".

This included “reviewing the OCI Memorandum and Articles of Association/Constitution and the governance arrangements in the constitutions of a selection of relevant comparator sports bodies and other National Olympic Committees (NOC’s) with a view to making recommendations on changes that might be made to the OCI Memorandum and Articles of Association/Constitution”.

Kilty had taken a voluntary sabbatical from his current profession in the financial services sector, as head of IT at Merrion Capital Group, in order to give his chef de mission role his full attention.

The now acting president of the OCI, Willie O’Brien, said in a statement on Tuesday night that he accepted Delaney’s resignation “with regret”.

The executive committee is now down to 10 members, given Hickey has also stepped aside. The content of the Deloitte report may well decide how much longer they remain in place.

In the meantime, High Court judge Carroll Moran continues to oversee a State inquiry to establish the “policies, procedure, processes and practices” of ticket distribution adopted by the OCI going back to London 2012.

That report was expected next month but Mr Justice Moran has indicated that he will need more time to reach his conclusions. Its publication is now expected next Easter, with an interim report due in November.