Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

I accept Deputy O'Donovan's remarks. Perhaps I used intemperate language, but it was out of sheer frustration. I got upset by what I saw happening and the collapse of all of the efforts that had been made to achieve a result. It is not in my character to do that publicly or otherwise. I am in the business of mediation, that is my professional career, but I was upset and had a deep sense of frustration because I could anticipate what I eventually saw in the newspapers and on television on Thursday. My opinion at that point was that something dramatic needed to be done to stop Mr. Walsh from going to America, but it did not materialise.

The IABA did raise with us, at the meeting in the Clayton Hotel, very legitimate concerns around the impact this would have in the downscale effect of giving Mr. Walsh a particular increase. We felt it needed to be done and benchmarked against other high performance directors - not matching the US offer because I never really knew what the US offer was - to try to retain him. We did agree with the IABA that this would have an effect within the organisation which we could not address immediately in those negotiations and on the basis of his contract. But we did write:

IABA salary view - the Irish Sports Council recommends that an independent review be undertaken of the salary structure of the IABA. The terms of the review are to be agreed with the IABA. This review will be undertaken as soon as possible in order that any recommendations may be implemented from 1 January 2016 [which was our next funding round].

Our view was that they had raised concerns and we needed to address those but the only way we could do that was to agree terms of reference with them. In the meantime we did indicate to them that if a particular difficulty arose with the technical director Mr. Zaur Antia then we felt that needed to be addressed immediately to assist the situation. There was an immediate effect and I know what this means and I accept they had a legitimate concern about that.

I appreciate the committee can get confused about the deadlines but at the meeting with the Minister in Athlone it was made very clear to us that the IABA wished solely to negotiate with their own employee. The view we expressed at that stage was: "Fine, good, and perhaps you would let us and the Minister know what is happening." There was a clear message from the IABA: "He is our employee and we will negotiate with him." At that meeting I did give the assurance, on behalf of the Irish Sports Council, that we would fund any agreement they reached - within the general parameters we had previously outlined and agreed. Our view at that stage was the financial issue was out of the way and that the IABA need not worry about it. We knew we could fund it and that it was benchmarked against other high performance directors in other sports in Ireland, not internationally. We also felt that our proposal or agreement catered for their concerns and that we would conduct, with the IABA, an independent review on agreed terms of reference to go through the organisation from head office to high performance coaches-----