Mr. John Treacy:

I will address the first part and Mr. Mulvey will address the second. When this issue arose in February, we were concerned about the possibility of losing Mr. Walsh, our leading coach, a year before the Olympic Games. We raised it with the IABA at the time. We are not the employer. It was up to the IABA to take action. We met it in March and urged it to deal with the issue, sort out the contract and ensure that Mr. Walsh did not leave the country. He is in an international marketplace and his salary was not at the level of other high performance directors. He was the lowest paid. This is the background.

We raised the matter in April. The chief executive called me seeking funding for an international event. I told him that the ISC's one priority was not to lose Mr. Walsh and that it should be his top priority as well. Rolling into July, we met the chairman and chief executive and underlined the importance of retaining Mr. Walsh. The board, which includes the four people present, met the IABA in August. Through that meeting, we again outlined the importance of retaining Mr. Walsh. During that meeting, we were told that the IABA had 20 coaches who could do Mr. Walsh's job. We were astounded. Our chairman asked a relevant question at the time, that being whether the IABA wanted to retain Mr. Walsh. The answer was "Yes." That was good to hear. The next day, we met in Sandyford. I will hand over to our chairman, Mr. Mulvey, who will take up the story from there.