Mr. John Treacy:

Sorry, Deputy. Going back to before the Irish Sports Council was established in 1999, then Minister of State with responsibility for sport, Bernard Allen, made a decision that all Government funding would go through the Irish Sports Council. Up to that point, high-performance funding had gone through the OCI. That was the genesis of a fractured relationship between the Irish Sports Council and the OCI. That went on for about four or five years. Then things settled down. Through the Athens cycle, we got on with our business. However, it blew up again around accreditation, which was an issue in Sydney and also in Beijing. It really blew up around the service providers and accreditation for the performance directors of the governing bodies of sport. We took a line on it that we wanted to make sure that if our athletes were preparing and working with people in the lead-in to the Olympic Games, those people around them should be accredited. We had a situation involving Mr. Gary Keegan whereby he was sitting in the stand alongside ourselves and did not have access to his boxers. Mr. Keegan ran a very important programme in 2008, winning three Olympic medals with fantastic boxers. That was a real problem for us. We saw it as a real issue. We did our report, the OCI did its own report and then we were in dispute with it. We presented before the Oireachtas sport committee, as did Mr. Hickey. It was very fractured. At the time, Mr. Hickey was looking for a board member of Sport Ireland to be nominated by the OCI. He was granted that. That was not an issue, but it showed and demonstrated the power. He was the president of the European Olympic Committees and that type of thing. Mr. Mulvey was brought in to calm the waters, which he did very well. Things calmed down. We worked together, as we had to. However, as Mr. Mulvey said, we were always kind of careful to ensure that we gave due respect.

The real issue was around autonomy. That is why I alluded to it in my opening statement. The OCI would always look to the IOC for its governance guidance. It would look at Sport Ireland and the Government as interfering in IOC and OCI business. That was really a catalyst for conflict. In fact, at one particular stage, the IOC named Mr. Hickey as the IOC autonomy tsar. Effectively, that was to advise, I believe, other national organisations that were having difficulty with governments. It is not unique to Ireland; there are other countries that have difficulties with the IOC. With a lot of guidance from everyone, we calmed the waters and got on with our business.

The operational agreement was a step in the right direction and we are now in a different space.

We have a long association with Ms Sarah Keane from Swim Ireland and with Ms Sarah O'Shea, who works for the FAI.