Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

I thank the Senator for his kind words. I enjoyed a period of time working with the Senator before his appointment to the Oireachtas. Senator Coghlan asked what Billy Walsh was looking for. I think he was looking for respect and, my God, did he deserve it. The second thing he wanted was reasonable authority to run the high performance programme without petty bureaucratic interference day in and day out. They were the two core issues with him. I gave a flavour of what the IABA was looking for in the new contract. How can one have a situation in Doha where a boxer wins a world medal and he turns to Des Cahill to say, "I cannot be interviewed. I have to get written permission from the chief executive". There is a lot said. That exposes a mentality to me. From what I know and understand of what was going on, it was constantly to chip back at whatever authority Billy had achieved within the organisation, albeit that authority was not enormous.

There is a feeling I get sometimes from meeting with the IABA that there is a resentment of the high performance unit and the resources that go to it. It is not out of kilter with the balance in other sports. We maintain that balance. Participation is vitally important. It is not about elites but participation. We develop elites out of participation and that is vital. When we get elite talent, we nurture and care for it by providing the facilities. Senator Coghlan had to go abroad to do it, but athletes no longer have to do that in a lot of sports. We have to arrange for training abroad, but it is not the first criterion.

In regard to the double funding issue, I am not as familiar with that as I should be. We have discussed the matter with Sport Northern Ireland and there is a further meeting this morning. We have to watch that we are not doubly funding. We have a proper and reasonably generous podium finish for our elite athletes on the basis of performance and that is important. The issue in Sport Northern Ireland is a bit more sensitive because we have Team GB who are predators about certain athletes on our island. Team GB has medalled people at gold, silver and bronze at world, Commonwealth and Olympic games on the basis of dual nationality in Northern Ireland. It is a sensitive issue. We must ensure that those we fund in all-Ireland sports are not disadvantagedvis-à-visthe incentives and opportunities that may be available from across the water. It is highly competitive. Team GB sees the GB as GB, with Northern Ireland as an element of that.