Mr. John Treacy:

Funding for high performance has been static since 2008. We have tried to keep the high performance systems going but is about leadership in that space. As Deputy O'Mahony said, it is about having high performance people to direct the programme and ensure we get value for money. We are very tight with the sports governing bodies and they have detailed performance plans, on which Mr. McDermott will comment. We know where the spend goes and that there is no wastage and we get as much out of the system as we can. Many of the countries Senator Ó Céidigh named have been in the high performance business for much longer than we have but the institute has certainly kicked on.

On the question of whether everything was joined up, it is a lot better than it ever was. I was before this committee in 2009 with the OCI and things were not as joined up at that time. We get value for money in high performance but we need to kick it on further with more investment. Rio was expensive and some of the sports are carrying a deficit from it. Sailing is one such sport and there are one or two others because it was so expensive. Governing bodies for other sports are emerging such as hockey, which now has two teams which are very close to qualification. Sending a team to Rio is very expensive but a team adds a whole new dimension to the Olympic experience for all the other athletes and this is hugely important. We got a fantastic return in terms of places in the top 20. We did not get the medals, though, because of the boxing programme. We had anticipated three medals but we got some really bad judging decisions.