Ciaran O’Catháin is reported to be the third member of the Olympic Council of Ireland Executive Committee to have resigned, tendering his exit at Wednesday’s meeting which decided to suspend the Grant Thornton report into ticketing arrangements on foot of a legal challenge by representatives of Pat Hickey.
O’Catháin was one of the three members of the crisis sub committee which effectively took control of managing a situation that none could have foreseen prior to Hickey’s arrest in Brazil.
That leaves Swim Ireland CEO Sarah Keane and Snow Sports Ireland representative Robert Norwood as what is now a two person committee. It is not yet clear if a third person will be added from the remaining eight other Executve Committee members.
A statement from the OCI on Wednesday night made no mention of O’Catháin’s resignation but did reveal that an EGM would be held in January to elect a new Executive Committee.
Grant Thornton had completed enough of the work to be ready to provide a sealed copy of their findings into the OCI’s ticketing arrangement to the Government inquiry led by Justice Moran by November 15th.
It would have covered much of the ground that pertains to the charges levelled against Pat Hickey and as such there is an obvious reason why they would need to be sensitively handled.
The costs of doing the work though have already been racked up, as were those relating to the Deloitte Report into governance and the Arthur Cox analysis of board notes in the early stages of the drama.
Professional service reports like these do not come cheap but are a price that needs to be paid to ensure that everything is best placed for the OCI to retain a relevant and respected future within Irish sports administration.
It is of course an independent company and perhaps more beholden in terms of reporting and structures to the International Olympic Committee than to Sport Ireland or the Irish Government.
It is Irish sport though, through the national governing bodies of sport that will vote at the EGM on potential governance changes and on who will implement them.
The IOC looks with ill favour on anything it deems to be Government intervention. It is currently taking legal action in Kuwait against a rival organisation established by the Government there to manage Olympic matters.
Another irony of this story from an Irish perspective is that Pat Hickey was the IOC member with responsibility for managing the independence of national committees.
On a more positive note the Olympic Council Acting President Willie O’Brien was able to grab momentary relief from legal issues when presenting Rob Heffernan with his upgraded Bronze medal from the London Olympics in Cork last night.
Heffernan’s ‘promotion’ as a result of doping disqualification for a rival who finished ahead of him makes him Ireland’s fifth ever Olympic track athletics medallist after Bob Tisdall, Ronnie Delaney, John Treacy and Sonia O’Sullivan.
We have to grab our momentary pleasures where we can…
