Not looking good across the water

Plans for a €460m sporting and leisure investment, which include Ireland’s newest racecourse, were unveiled today in Nenagh in a development which is set to employ a total of 3,000 people during the three years of construction.The 800 acre development is set beside the village of Two-Mile-Borris and will be known as the Tipperary Venue. The project will include a racecourse, an all-weather and floodlit course, a 500 room hotel, a casino, golf course, greyhound track and a 15,000 seater entertainment venue.
The chief investor in the development is Dublin businessman Richard Quirke, a former Garda from Thurles who is best known in the gaming industry as owner of Dr Quirkeys’ Good Time Emporium in Dublin.
Speaking at Nenagh today, Quirke stated “we are hoping that 80% of our patronage will come from abroad and 20% will come from home.”
Work is expected to begin next Spring.
 
Ireland definately needs another hotel. :blink:

And the massive attendances at Dundalks AW meeting are bound to only encourage this development. Il be surprised if a sod is ever turned.
 
Thinking back have we not had this idea before in the recent past?

The last plans involving shutting down Thurles and building a course/hotel/leisure complex closer to Tipperary town?
 
If Mr Quirke manages to get this up, running and profitable I will glady lead the revolution to place him in power as the one and only leader of this Country :blink: Il Quirkey ! World domination will follow shortly after that.
 
Galileo said:
It is the same plan - but this is confirming work starts in the spring.
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I wouldn't be so sure. Who is financing it? A 500 bed hotel? And I believe it's going to be 5 star. That's €10-15k a room in fit out, which is €5-7.5 million, before you even think about putting a brick down. 5 star hotels are struggling all over the country, who thinks they can make it work and at 500 rooms how will they ever get sufficient capacity to make it efficient?

I did read conflicting reports, one say they had financing in place and the other saying they were looking for invstors. I'd say this is similar to the lad who said he'd accept offers of more than €1 for his home. Needless to say, he wanted the publicity and refused €150k for it.

PS Thurles is an industry track with only one or two big days, and those are small. Will the new track be happy with that? Doubt it and no chance of getting any more fixtures.
 
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Looks like the IBA have launched a Fatwah against HRI today!! Seems like freedom of information requests haven't been dealt with - this could get really messy!!!
 
Sheikh said:
ITBA ? what's it about ?
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Irish Bookmakers Association are getting their retaliation in first as HRI are lobbying the government to increase betting tax on bookmakers and/or trying to establish a mechanism for taxing the Irish betting routed off-shore. The IBA engaged KPMG to do some analysis on HRI spending the results of which do not look good at first glance. The IBA are also trying to exert pressure on HRI to race at Dundalk from January to March next year which the HRI seem set against. This has been brewing for some time and may rage on for a while yet!!!:p
 
There was a disgracefully partisan piece in yesterday's Irish Independent about a report commissioned by the Irish Bookmakers Association from KPMG on the activities of Horse Racing Ireland.

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/racing-body-accounts-probe-call-2412183.html

HRI was invited neither to respond nor contribute to the report. KPMG should be ashamed of its involvement in such a grubby exercise. The response from HRI is rather convincing:

http://www.irishracing.com/v5newsitem?prid=49061
 
Grey said:
There was a disgracefully partisan piece in yesterday's Irish Independent about a report commissioned by the Irish Bookmakers Association from KPMG on the activities of Horse Racing Ireland.

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/racing-body-accounts-probe-call-2412183.html

HRI was invited neither to respond nor contribute to the report. KPMG should be ashamed of its involvement in such a grubby exercise. The response from HRI is rather convincing:

http://www.irishracing.com/v5newsitem?prid=49061
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Agreed :mad:
 
Read about it. It's a really cheap and nasty ploy.

Give the bookies the boot. Tote only betting is the way forward and the way the best run racing jurisdictions thrive.
 
Sheikh said:
Read about it. It's a really cheap and nasty ploy.

Give the bookies the boot. Tote only betting is the way forward and the way the best run racing jurisdictions thrive.
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Who is Sharon Byrne head of IBA?? Any clues anyone - now Brian Kavanagh's salary is being kicked around the place - is there no low that the IBA will not stoop to!! :nono::nono:
 
Grey said:
KPMG should be ashamed of its involvement in such a grubby exercise.
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Now hang on a minute. As an alumni of that firm, I'd take issue with anyone saying something like that without knowing the scope of the work and seeing the output of that work i.e. the report. If someone appraoched KPMG and asked them to review the accounts of HRI for the last 10 years and document any significant cost increases that are not clearly explained in the accounts, then KPMG would build their engagement scope on that basis, would remind the user that it does not have access to the supporting documents and will bill a fee. What's the problem? I've done it myself in the past. If someone is willing to give you €5k to pull some comparitives together then why not take it. If the client then uses it for a manner it was not intended, KPMG would take appropriate action. Sharon Byrne has not once mentioned the KPMG report other than listing out comparitives so how do you know what they did? You can hardly expect them to turn down work because a reputable crew like the IBA is considered "grubby" by some in carrying out this exercise. Sorry Grey, I completely disagree with you on this one.
 
Sharon Byrne is full of it-heard her on radio 1 news a few weeks ago saying that the refusal to race at Dundalk from January to March is a national disgrace.With everything the country has to face at the moment she has little enough to be worried about.
 
LUKE said:
Sharon Byrne is full of it-heard her on radio 1 news a few weeks ago saying that the refusal to race at Dundalk from January to March is a national disgrace.With everything the country has to face at the moment she has little enough to be worried about.
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It's 100% to do with wanting all year around 10pm closing and nothing to do with Dundalk racing which she was quoted as saying was"Europe's premier sand track "




.
 
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Irish bookies are loving their Friday night racing at Dundalk - massive turnover as you can either relax in front of the box or enjoy in the boozer with a few scoops after a hard weeks work - but they are not willing to pay what HRI feel is a fair price for the product! I am not the biggest HRI fan around bit would stand full square behind them on this and on getting a fair tax and fair proportion of off shore routed telephone and Internet betting. A tote monopoly is the Utopian hope - will not happen in my lifetime (not the oldest forumite ad you can see from avatar) but The Tote need to offer opportunities to the general punter / population to win large pools - see what happened in Dundalk two weeks ago where the jackpot rolled over twice - the pool started at circa 70k and grew to 250k - a contribution of 45k to Irish racing alone. A collaboration between the National Lottery and the tote shoulb be looked - similar to the PMU in France??
 
LUKE said:
Sharon Byrne is full of it-heard her on radio 1 news a few weeks ago saying that the refusal to race at Dundalk from January to March is a national disgrace.With everything the country has to face at the moment she has little enough to be worried about.
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Would ya? :whistle:
 
Cantoris said:
Now hang on a minute. As an alumni of that firm, I'd take issue with anyone saying something like that without knowing the scope of the work and seeing the output of that work i.e. the report. If someone appraoched KPMG and asked them to review the accounts of HRI for the last 10 years and document any significant cost increases that are not clearly explained in the accounts, then KPMG would build their engagement scope on that basis, would remind the user that it does not have access to the supporting documents and will bill a fee. What's the problem? I've done it myself in the past. If someone is willing to give you €5k to pull some comparitives together then why not take it. If the client then uses it for a manner it was not intended, KPMG would take appropriate action. Sharon Byrne has not once mentioned the KPMG report other than listing out comparitives so how do you know what they did? You can hardly expect them to turn down work because a reputable crew like the IBA is considered "grubby" by some in carrying out this exercise. Sorry Grey, I completely disagree with you on this one.
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Do you think KPMG were so naive that they didn't know how their work would be used? And do you think it is ok to produce a report which will be used in the public domain without checking the facts with the subject of the report and giving them an opportunity to comment?
 
I'm sure if setting up a Tote only system was possible we would have done it by now.

Anyone know what the difficultes are ?
 
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