Mr. John Treacy:

I will answer the questions on performance. Boxing is part of Team Ireland when it comes to the Olympic Games and considerable investment has been made in it. We certainly have had a fantastic return from our boxers. In athletics we had a fourth place finish, and Senator Coghlan and myself realise more than anyone else that track and field events are truly global sports and extremely difficult. A total of 220 countries compete in track and field events and if we come out with finalists we are doing extremely well from an Irish perspective. We had two fourth place finishes and six other top ten finishes. Robbie Heffernan finished fourth in athletics. In equestrian sport, Cian O'Connor received a fantastic medal in individual show-jumping. I am delighted to say the show-jumping team has gone from strength to strength and competed extremely well in the Nations Cup this year.

The eventing team was placed fifth overall, which is an outstanding achievement. It is a world class team. Ms Aoife Clark finished seventh in the Olympic Games. Ms Lisa Kearney, a young judo fighter, got into the last 16 in the world. It was a world class performance.

The modern pentathlon was not on the radar four years ago. We work closely with those involved. They have a good performance manager. Ms Natalya Coyle finished ninth in the modern pentathlon in London, which was a truly outstanding performance.

Everyone was on the edge of the seat throughout the first week of the Olympic Games because of sailing. Ms Annalise Murphy did an outstanding job winning races. Sailing is a marathon event, in that one's 12 best races are taken into account. The only thing that stopped Ms Murphy from getting a medal was a little bit of inexperience. Another couple of boats were in the top ten.

These were some of our outstanding results. Without a shadow of a doubt, the tide is lifting in terms of high performance sport in Ireland. We are getting a good return on our investment. We are coming along in leaps and bounds as regards Olympic sports. The review agreed that there had been outstanding achievements since Beijing. Senator Coghlan has been playing the devil's advocate to a large degree. Compared with four years ago, though, we have broadened our sporting horizons considerably.

Golf will be included in the next Olympics. I hope that Ireland will have some world class golfers at the games. I also hope that we will have a women's sevens team and a women's hockey team. Sometimes, just qualifying for the Olympics is a fantastic achievement. Whenever we have someone in the top 15 or 16 in the world, it is a magnificent achievement for a country with a population of 4.5 million.