Ireland’s Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport is inviting public submissions to the Moran Inquiry, which is designed to investigate allegations that Rio 2016 tickets allocated the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) were resold at inflated prices. A separate OCI inquiry into how hundreds of tickets earmarked for the OCI ended up in the possession of four men connected to THG Sports, who had marked them up for sale at inflated prices, was halted last week after the OCI’s President, Pat Hickey, launched legal action.

Hickey stepped down from both his OCI role and his position as President of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) following his August arrest in Rio in connection to the allegations. Police told the BBC that they are investigating the possibility that Pro10 Sports Management, the Irish Authorised Ticket Reseller (ATR) based in Dublin, may have been set up by the OCI as a method of acquiring tickets for THG Sports, which was the OCI’s ATR prior to Rio. Pro10 does not list any clients other than the OCI on its internet site.

It later emerged that Hickey had written to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) proposing that THG Sports be used as a ticketing sub-agent for the OCI. In the email, Hickey proposed that THG be granted the same rights as an ATR, after the Rio 2016 Organising Committee rejected a proposal for THG Sports to be used, due to allegations to ticket touting at the FIFA 2014 World Cup Brazil. In the emails, reportedly dated 10 April 2015, Hickey claims that IOC President Thomas Bach had accepted his plan. Pro10 Sports Management was set up on 28 April, 18 days after Hickey’s email.

The postponed OCI inquiry, managed by Grant Thornton, will be ‘completed only following the conclusion of criminal proceedings against Mr Pat Hickey in Rio’. The terms of reference for the separate government inquiry, launched by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, are available here.