Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his presentation and acknowledge the large tranches of funding which have come our way over the past year or two, in particular sports capital grants, the swimming pools initiative and funding for the Irish Amateur Boxing Association. I hope we see more sports capital grants in the future.

In times of economic stress there is a risk that sport is the first sector to be hit. Is the Minister of State happy he can protect existing funding for sports? With regard to dual careers, he said the Irish presidency had prepared a set of Council conclusions on dual careers which will be adopted at next week's meeting. Can he elaborate on the options that might be available to retiring sports people?

Doping has been prevalent in sport for years. Are we catching up with it? I note the Minister of State said we spend €18,000 per week on testing. How much does it cost to test one person? How many tests are done in a week? Cheating also involves corruption and gambling. How are we progressing in trying to combat those aspects of cheating?