IGB ANNUAL REPORT 2009 final.pdf

Foreword to Annual Report 2009
Dick O’Sullivan
Chairman
We have endured another difficult year for the industry with further cuts to the Horse and Greyhound Fund and continued
difficult trading conditions for a leisure business such as ours.
Yet still we have pulled through with an annual surplus, for reinvestment to the industry, of €0.7 million. We have maintained
our stadia and broken ground on the new Limerick Stadium which will rise in 2010 as a beacon of our confidence and faith in
the future of an industry that will survive.
I sincerely hope and believe that the cuts to central funding which we have borne for two years are at an end. Funding for the
sport that supports so many jobs and is the backbone of so many local communities is now at a lower level than it was in 2002.
We are a home grown multinational enterprise and we deserve to be treated fairly in terms of the small supportive investment
that government invests in order to generate the €500 million of local economic activity which we do.
There must be no more cuts in this funding.
We have taken to the road this year and met with people who have an interest and a passion for our industry. The discussions
at stadia up and down Ireland were robust but that is a mark of the strong feelings which the sport gives rise to.
We saw the departure of Paddy Power as sponsor of the Irish Greyhound derby this year but they went out with a bang.
College Causeway was a true superstar and we look forward in 2010 to welcoming a new sponsor and a new cast of canine
heroes with whom to spread the message that Greyhound racing in Ireland is alive and kicking.

Dick O’Sullivan
Chairman

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