Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come to that issue in a second. There was no communication beforehand. I have never met the judge and never spoken to him on the telephone. From time to time he applied for extensions and my official got in touch from time to time with the solicitor there. That is how the communication worked. The judge would come back to say he wanted an extension and I might have asked for what reason. From memory, I think one of the reasons was there was difficulty in getting people to attend and co-operate. That was the extent of my knowledge. I was aware that there was a difficulty in that regard, but I did not know the detail, who was or was not attending and who was co-operating. It was totally detached and I had no communication with the judge whatsoever.

To get back to the business of whether anybody had asked me beforehand, it is something that is difficult to remember.

Before the Olympic Games, the answer was "No". Nobody suggested to me at any stage that there were problems of this nature and that is why what we are getting in this report is such a shock - some of it appeared since last August - and is confirmation in an independent documented form that there was this relationship between THG and the Pro10. There was this relationship between Mr. Hickey and Marcus Evans and it was something of which we had no notion before then. It is extremely important we found that out. I mention the co-operation of all the staff in the OCI and other members. Remember Mr. Hickey's personal assistant gave very strong evidence. As I said in my opening statement, she agreed THG could be described as a front or a cover. That was extremely powerful evidence. Mr. Kevin Kilty, who was treasurer, and Mr. Willie O'Brien, the vice president, gave evidence. They got all the evidence from the OCI for which they asked. That has not give us a complete picture - remember we were not asking the judge to look for criminality. He did not need to pursue that line at all - that is for others. They had to be very careful about that because of what is happening in Brazil. However, what we did get was conclusive evidence that what was going on was unacceptable and in breach of the rules of the Olympics. What we got in addition to that is important.

We got real reform in the OCI. Look what has happened since July last year. We have a completely changed OCI and Mr. Hickey is not in the picture for good or for ill as a result of that. We have utter commitment to reform and the exposure of the disgraceful behaviour towards the athletes and their families and that has been extraordinarily useful. That makes it worthwhile in itself. Remember the reputation of Ireland, certainly in the sporting world, was sinking while this controversy was breaking. At the very least, we have stabilised that. We have identified the problems and we will ensure it will not happen again, certainly on my watch.

I was asked a question about funding. In 2016, we paid €390,000 and it is due €130,000 for 2016. I will address the issue of funding and what we are going to do about that. We would like to refund the money and resume funding to the OCI as soon as possible. It is certainly our intention to resume funding to the OCI provided we get the answers that are necessary. We salute the improvements it is making. There is absolutely no doubt about that. It is to some extent pushing in an open door but we want to be absolutely sure the house is completely in order, that the reforms have been embraced, which they have been, that it will implement the 25 recommendations on corporate governance made by Deloitte and that the outstanding questions, such as the question of the reconciliation payments in 2012 and 2016, are resolved before we resume funding to it. It would be wrong if we did not do that. One has to realise - I think the judge pointed it out - that it gets an awful lot of funding from elsewhere.