Mr. David Conway:

I will talk about the participation of children in sport. The National Sports Campus and the aquatic centre found that a very large participation base was needed to offset any of the costs and so on incurred by the facility. However, that also give us the opportunity to have the high performance swimmers training at the same time as participation and there is a great pull-push factor when that happens. The participation rates in our swim academies have gone from strength to strength. We see that in Morton Stadium in Santry also. We see high participation rates in Cumann na mBunscol and so on because we run the facility in a way that opens the door to mass participation which offsets the operational cost of high performance delivery.

In terms of the national horse sport arena, we have engaged with Horse Sport Ireland on developing that facility. One of the affiliates of that facility is the RDS. We see our base as a training facility where we have had high performance training over the past few days on the site itself. We do not see ourselves as going into competition with the RDS by hosting events and so on. That is its primary focus. There is quite good synergy between us. We have swapped fences and have done things to help each other out in terms of events and so on.

In regard to opening the schools, as an ex-PE teacher, I think it is a strategy that must be pursued. We will definitely assist in opening up facilities in terms of overcoming some of the existing barriers. Insurance was mentioned in the past but all of these things can be resolved. One can put good operational procedures in place in terms of running facilities, which we are very good at doing.

If one takes sports development at its most basic level, in terms of having a coach and facilities, what we are bringing to the table in the context of the merger of the two bodies is our knowledge of running facilities. What the Irish Sports Council is bringing to the table is coach education programmes, athlete development programmes and so forth. The three organisations in working cohesively together could really benefit sport in Ireland and drive it forward.