Mr. John Treacy:

Thank you for that. Rugby is not even an Olympic sport yet.

I will try to answer some of the questions. With regard to clubs, the Irish Sports Council does not have a relationship with clubs at local level. The sports capital programme is run by the Department and it supports clubs at local level. Hopefully, it will be run again shortly, because it is a huge support. Clubs in disadvantaged or socially deprived areas and working with people who are socially deprived have an advantage in terms of making applications. We are happy with that.

The local sports partnerships throughout the country are doing excellent work. I met with them yesterday and we were given a very good briefing on what they are doing.

We will evaluate each of the partnerships on a county-by-county basis to see if we get real value for money.

I wish to pay a compliment to the local sports partnerships, the committees and to the people who volunteer to sit on those boards. They do a lot of work in communities and encourage people to participate and get active.

The London Olympics was disappointing in terms of athletics. Mr. Robbie Heffernan had a great Olympics and was placed fourth in the 50 km walk and ninth in 20 km walk. My colleague, Mr. Pat Hickey, may not like me for saying so but athletics forms the centre piece of the Olympic Games.