THE UK Tote Group’s product director has confirmed that Lifford greyhound stadium is on course to reopen later this year.
Jamie Hart’s comments quash speculation that plans to recommence racing at the track have derailed.
It is over a year since a business consortium made the surprise announcement that it had purchased the stadium.
They hoped to have opened by August 2021 but their plans were delayed due to licencing issues involving Greyhound Racing Ireland.
With lingering problems seemingly ironed, out a fresh date of March was earmarked. But it too came and went.
With questions being asked over the future of the project the UK Tote Group has come out to say that Greyhound Racing Ireland (GRI) will discuss the matter at its monthly meeting in June. After that the traps in Lifford could be open by August.
UK Tote’s Jamie Hart said the delays were down to a number of factors, one of them the clash of jurisdictions.
“Because greyhound racing is pretty much government-run in Ireland, everything takes a bit longer when you are dealing with red tape,” Mr Hart said in an interview this week with the Greyhound Star.
“We have a lot of support from Greyhound Racing Ireland but GRI are the only people licenced to run a tote in Ireland on greyhound racing.
“If Lifford was 500 yards in the other direction it might have been a bit quicker because we would then come under UK jurisdiction and we have our UK licences. But to go into Ireland, we have to work absolutely hand in hand with GRI.”
A second unforeseen hurdle was a personnel change at the GRI’s top table. Former chief executive Ger Dollard, who was central to negotiations around the reopening of Lifford, announced in June 2021 that he was stepping down. He was replaced in September by Dearbhla O’Brien.
“They had a change of CEO while we were going through the process which was to the fault of no one,” said Jamie Hart.
“But Ger was up to speed and Dearbhla has come in. She has been very good with us but she is hitting the ground completely fresh so we have had to go back a little bit and retrace our steps to make sure everyone is on the same page.
“But there is nothing sinister in it, GRI are very supportive, we have put a final proposal and contract through to them recently so we are hoping that will go through their lawyers.”
Dozens of jobs will be created with the reopening of Lifford stadium.
In his budget for 2022, Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue allocated €17.6 million to Greyhound Racing Ireland.
The Lifford betting model will be unique in that the UK Tote Group is underwriting all prize money meaning that it will not cost the GRI, and by extension the Irish taxpayer, a penny.
“We are making sure it won’t cost GRI any money at all. It is no risk to them and we are hoping that the low margin tote model works, that it gets people going racing more often and it gets people betting more often on dog racing,” Mr Hart said.
“Of course the GRI has all the other tracks and we are hoping they then role the model out across those other tracks if it is successful.
“If it isn’t successful then GRI aren’t at risk financially, they won’t carry the can. Governments don’t like risk so that is why we are underwriting the experiment for them. Fingers crossed it does go well and the rest of Irish racing follows suit after that and we can prove it works.”
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