The Olympic Council of Ireland has asked the Rio organising committee to pass on all evidence relating to the sale of black market tickets, writes Elaine Loughlin, Irish Examiner Political Reporter.

The OCI are now investigating the ticket scandal, and have said they are progressing with their probe into how around 1,000 tickets may have ended up in the hands of touts.

A statement released by the council this afternoon said: “The OCI’s investigation into allegations of illegal ticket sales is progressing.

“We have formally requested the Rio 2016 Organising Committee to pass on immediately all evidence and relevant information from the investigating Brazilian authorities to enable the OCI to advance our inquiries as quickly as possible. “

The statement added: “The OCI strictly adheres to the IOC regulations around ticket allocation, sale and re-sale. We are treating this matter with the utmost seriousness.”

This morning TD Noel Rock who is a member of Public Accounts Committee called on the OCI president Pat Hickey to appear before the committee to answer questions.

“There are a number of things I want to ask him, obviously this is very serious I believe it needs to be treated with the appropriate gravity.

“There are approximately 1,000 tickets which have gone missing many of which have been sold for four times face value on the black market,” the Fine Gael TD said.

“Ultimately the Olympic council of Ireland is taxpayer funded so as such the Public Accounts Committee absolutely has the right to be asking these kinds of question. But Pat Hickey should be answering these type of questions.”

He added that there has been a “vacuum of information” since the scandal broke.