Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

In a general sense, one of the issues about corporate governance is best addressed by the letters of appointment. It is recommended that people appointed to boards have specific letters of appointment which elaborate on their duties, obligations, responsibilities and expected behaviour. Up to now letters of appointment to boards simply set out the term of the appointment and little else. Current letters of appointment in respect of the Irish Sports Council are as recommended by Paul Turpin. I believe it is a useful mechanism that people appointed to State boards are made fully cognisant of their responsibilities and duties. There needs to be more elaboration around that.

The wider issue in terms of corporate governance for members of boards is their reporting function. Currently, the decision around this is by virtue of law through the Minister rather than any other mechanism. I do not disagree with the point in relation to the dispute resolution. We are bringing together the four dispute resolution bodies in my area. It is hoped legislation in this regard will be enacted by the Oireachtas by the end of the year.

There is a cull of quangos policy about, much of which is appropriate and proper given the amount of overlap of functions. In our case, there are only two sporting bodies and a decision has been taken to amalgamate them. Up to now, we have worked well. The Irish Sports Council as an entity has worked extremely well, as has the NSCDA. There is a complementarity between us in so far as we inform each other. There are no great staffing issues. As outlined by Mr. Benton and Mr. Conway the Irish Sports Council has only four staff. We have 39 staff. The only reason we have 39 staff is because we brought in Coaching Ireland this year. Our equivalent in Northern Ireland has almost 90 staff. The operational efficiencies are minimal. Not much , even in terms of savings, will arise as a result of the merger.

Much of the powers being given to sport Ireland are replicated from the previous configuration of the council and campus. I do not believe the Department proposes to divest itself of the capital programme. To a large degree this is a bringing together, not so much from a policy point of view but from an operational point of view, of two bodies that operate in different spheres. The campus authority operates largely in the commercial high procurement, high cost facilities area, particularly around the campus, which it is doing very successfully and efficiently. The council is more about funding the non-governmental bodies, NGBs, managing as best we can in a remote way the operation of NGBs in creating organisational capacity for them and, as stated earlier, carrying out audits. We audit a number of governing bodies each year just to satisfy ourselves that the money we have expended to them is being appropriately spent. That is an external audit. We carry out our own internal audit on moneys we have provided to NGBs. We have engaged in more oversight of agencies over recent years because, as a State organisation distributing €42 million, we are aware of the need to ensure we not only receive value for money but that the money is spent appropriately and properly.

Mr. Treacy and I have to date met approximately 15 of the non-governmental bodies at which we outlined their corporate and audit responsibilities. We do not want to see happen in sport what has happened in other areas, which are currently controversial.