Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses from both associations for coming here. There seems to be a big conflict in respect of what actually happened. Mr. Walsh is saying that it was not down to monetary issues yet the IABA is saying that it was down to these issues in terms of long-term contracts and their consequences. That seems to suggest that there were serious problems. The negotiations lasted eight months, which seems to be a long period for negotiations. Even the people who went to the negotiations for Mr. Walsh - Fergus Barry and Tommy Cummins - described the meetings as being tetchy on each occasion so there was obviously some serious conflict. I know the IABA has done marvellous work for boxing. It has been the flag for this country for a long time, which is fantastic.

To me, a coach is someone who has a fair amount of flexibility. Is it true that part of the contract involved insisting that Billy Walsh had to get written permission to talk to the Irish Sports Council or the Olympic Council of Ireland? If so, what did it mean? It has been said that conditions were imposed on him and the IABA reserved the right to make changes to the contract. I find that hard to understand when someone is signing up to a contract. To impose those conditions on a manager is like telling José Mourinho that we are going to impose certain conditions. That man is very strong-minded so we know what he would say. He would go his own way.

Do the representatives from the IABA think that an independent review by the Minister of State to see what happened here would be a good idea because there is obviously a conflict? The statutory body, which is Sport Ireland, has said that it could look at funding in the future. Do the representatives from the IABA think that this is very unfair or puts a condition on the directors and the CEO, etc? Is the funding under threat?

Is the damage to morale, etc., repairable? Zaur Antia is the interim head coach.

Will coaches be subject to the same sort of conditions as Billy Walsh into the future?