Mr. Pat Ryan:

Absolutely not. The inception of the high performance unit in the IABA was one of the greatest happenings in its history. Naturally, in its infancy there were many misconceptions about what was involved in high performance, who would run it and all kinds of questions.

When the position came up, Gary Keegan, who is a personal friend of mine, and I, discussed it at length. He and I are directly involved in co-ordinating training at national level. Gary was fortunate and successful in his role. We then identified a coach and Billy Walsh was identified at that time as a very young, ambitious and well-established coach and he was appointed.

It is necessary to take a broader view of the high performance unit. It is the jigsaw for success. Part of the jigsaw was to try to source a technical coach. This job was given to Dan O’Connell from Cork, who was one of our top international referees and judges. In Georgia Dan found Zuar Antia, who was brought to this country and we employed him. He is probably reputed to be one of the finest technical coaches in the world. His contribution to this jigsaw is huge. Also at the time, Jim Moore, whose son won a bronze medal in 2001 in Belfast, was part of the coaching staff. The Irish Sports Council supplied the necessary support staff in sport psychology and eventually came on board with Gerry Hussey, a remarkable sports psychologist. His contribution was also huge. We had dieticians, and a strength and conditioning coach, John Cleary, an exceptional guy. His work ethic and contribution to the entire programme, from youth to senior level, have been phenomenal. We absolutely do not resent the high performance unit. I am sure the CEO of Sport Ireland, John Treacy, would be aware that my endeavour to be president of this organisation goes back many years, with a good struggle.

However, I succeeded. It would have been mooted around the country, because Billy Walsh and I spent ten years together in the high performance unit. I was involved in coaching many teams under Billy's stewardship. I know the value of Billy Walsh and never was his professionalism or expertise questioned by anybody.

What is more important for me, as president of the organisation, is the tears that come after. There has been a huge discussion here about what happened with regard to Billy's position and the parties involved. However, it is important that we are very much aware that the high performance unit is one element of our organisation. To take it a stage further and say that we are dysfunctional would be a misrepresentation of how the organisation functions. We have more clubs, more coaches and more boxers, both boys and girls, at present. We have an excellent level 1 and level 2 coaching programme that is implemented and delivered by established master tutors. We also have a referee and judges programme that has enabled some of our referees and judges to officiate at the three pathways that are now available to the Olympic podium, which are AOB - Olympic, WSB - World Series Boxing, and APB - the AIBA professional programme. The same coaching staff is involved with that. I am concerned that we need more coaches to function at this high level. The high performance unit has been fantastic for the IABA but to develop the sport further, it is now a requirement for us to move forward to establish these centre-of-excellence boxing academies in the four units so we can continue the pipeline or conveyor belt and produce boxers from all 32 counties, and so the coaches working in these areas get an opportunity to learn high performance systems and, therefore, continue to produce the conveyor belt of boxers coming to high performance.