The majority of the board of Horse Sport Ireland (HSI), the national governing body for equestrian sports, has resigned in recent days, pitching the top of the organisation into major turmoil.
Six of the eight members of the organisation’s board, including former TD Lucinda Creighton, have resigned, with four directors believed to have stepped down due to a lack of support for the current management of the part State-funded body.
One board member, who resigned, said the organisation had become “completely dysfunctional”, criticising the growing number of conflicts involving HSI and staff, funders, and affiliate bodies.
The board had been split in its support of the chief executive, Denis Duggan, with a majority of directors voting to dismiss him at a recent meeting, sources said. Mr Duggan, who remains in place at present, did not wish to comment when contacted.
HSI received €4.7 million in funding from the Department of Agriculture last year, as well as €2.7 million from Sport Ireland.
Last month, HSI took legal action over a department decision to award a contract for marketing services promoting the industry to the Irish Horse Board, a membership body for horse breeders. HSI had previously been funded to provide the services and initiated a judicial review in the High Court to overturn the department’s decision.
It is understood several board members disagreed with the decision to take legal action against its main public funder.
The Naas-based organisation has been left with just two remaining directors, chair of the board Joe Reynolds and Edward Doyle.
Ms Creighton, former leader of political party Renua and previous Fine Gael minister of state, resigned from the board in recent days. The former politician, who currently works as a public affairs consultant, had been appointed to the board by the Minister for Agriculture in 2018.
Two other ministerial appointments to the board, Prof Mary Lambkin Coyle, a UCD Smurfit business school academic, and businesswoman Clare Hughes also tendered their resignations.
Other board members who confirmed they had resigned included David O’Meara, Paul Duffy and Tom Freyne.
In a statement, HSI said its focus was the growth and development of the horse sport sector. The chair of the board was liaising with the department “as a matter of urgency” following the resignations, it said.
Dressage Ireland, an affiliate body, recently wrote to the board of the organisation stating its relationship with the governing body had been “severely fractured”.
In a November 9th letter, seen by The Irish Times, the organisation said “we believe that there is now a complete failure of leadership at Horse Sport Ireland, especially at CEO level”. The situation had become “detrimental” to athletes, breeders, owners, coaches and volunteers, it said.
Marguerite Kavanagh, chair of Dressage Ireland’s board, criticised the “lack of financial transparency” at HSI and a failure to respond to complaints.
Showjumping Ireland, another affiliate organisation, similarly stated in an October 19th letter that it had “serious reservations” about how HSI was being run.
The correspondence said if the showjumping body was to have confidence in HSI, it was “essential” the boards of the two organisations met, “to discuss and resolve the increasing and serious concerns”.
HSI said it recognised that relations with Dressage Ireland “have been strained at times”, following a decision last year not to send an Irish dressage team to the Tokyo Olympics. The organisation “has been working to rebuild those relationships through a variety of measures and continues to do so,” a spokesman said.
A spokesman for Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said he was “aware of the recent resignations from the board of Horse Sport Ireland”.
“The Minister is considering the best course of action in the interest of HSI and the industry as a whole,” he said.
