Mr. John Treacy:

We keep extremely close track of that money. We would give the GAA an allocation and it would come back to us, tell us how it is going to spend the money and the funding would then go to it. We would audit the big three field sports every three years. We would send in our auditors, who would verify that the moneys we have given to the sporting organisations were expended for the purposes for which they were given.

The governing bodies themselves would also come in to the council to outline their work, which happens on a regular basis. One of the three field sports would come in on an annual basis or we might have two or three of them in during one year. They would make a presentation to the council in terms of how that money is spent. At the end of the year we would get a full report in terms of what targets were hit and their outline of plans for the following year. We have set very clear objectives and there are very clear measurements which the sporting bodies give back to us.

The committee members have been given a copy of the details. The graph shows the outputs for the State of those three national organisations. I firmly believe the taxpayer gets very good value for money for our investment in those three field sports. Our funding has been reducing over time and is down about 25% since 2007 or so. It is the three main field sports that have taken the brunt of those cuts - in fact, their funding is down 40%. In fairness, they have taken the brunt of the cut, which the other organisations have been spared.