Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is the first of three hearings on the issue of sport in Ireland which this committee will be convening over the next three weeks. As Chairman I am delighted to welcome to our joint committee the heads of the three biggest sporting organisations in the country. We are a sporting nation and sport is hugely important to us, therefore, the role of this committee is very important in terms of doing our best to try to advance sport and to support the sporting organisations.

In attendance today are representatives of the Football Association of Ireland, FAI, the Gaelic Athletic Association, GAA, and the Irish Rugby Football Union, IRFU. I am delighted to welcome Mr. Páraic Duffy, Mr. Philip Browne and Mr. John Delaney. All three organisations are to be congratulated for the massive contribution they make to Irish society at grassroots, club and county level but also at the elite level in terms of the international stage.

We are very proud of our sporting organisations and our athletes. In particular, I commend the GAA on its Healthy Clubs initiative, which plans to encourage more clubs to support communities in pursuit of better physical, social and mental health well-being. The GAA championships and the national league are also a vibrant part of Irish society, and it was great to see the GAA inter-county calendar get up and running in recent weeks. The excitement is already building, and we are getting ready in Kerry for the 38th coming of Sam in September; we live in hope.

The developments and achievements in rugby and soccer recently have been huge. I mention in particular the achievement of our national soccer team in 2015, whose members did the country proud in France and who, on another day, might have made it to the quarter finals and possibly beyond that. We can all be very proud of them, and they have got off to a great start in the qualification campaign for the World Cup in 2018. I hope we will have success in 2017 also.

I want to mention the League of Ireland, and the success of the Dundalk team has been a fantastic story. In terms of its success in the Europa League group stages and looking at the tables, four points was a great achievement but when we consider the results, each game was lost by only one goal. That says a lot about how far the League of Ireland has come. There are exciting times ahead for Irish soccer as well with some of the games in the 2020 European Championships coming to Dublin. Hopefully, it will be a case of onwards and upwards.

I congratulate the IRFU on its continuing success and wish it the very best in the Six Nations Championship, which is due to start the first weekend in February. I have to mention also the fantastic results in the autumn internationals. We waited a long time for the result against the All Blacks but good things come to those who wait. The Australia result was outstanding as well. It is very encouraging to see the performance of the Irish provinces in the Champions Cup. I hope there are very good times ahead for Irish rugby. I congratulate all those involved in that.

By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give to the committee. If, however, they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I remind our guests that their presentations should take no longer than five minutes. I call on the chief executive officer of the Football Association of Ireland, Mr. John Delaney, to make his opening statement.