Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear that. That is good.

On the question of whether Mr. Hickey should return to his former position, that is really a matter for other people. It is not up to me. I will not be speaking about that or having any influence on it.

On the question on when I knew the contract between THG Sports and OCI had been extended, I only knew in the last week.

I am obviously not going to answer the question on extradition, which was completely off the wall and out of bounds.

The Deputy asked me about the ODCE. We will consider a large number of options in the coming weeks regarding where we go with this report. The report itself is extremely powerful and has achieved a huge amount in terms of what it has exposed and the changes taking place. The ODCE is certainly one of the options we will consider but I do not want to say any more about it because I do not want to point the finger at anybody or at any particular reasons. If we think it is a sensible course to take, we will ask it to look at it. It is up to a large number of State bodies to look at it. I do not have to send it to them for them to read it. They can certainly look at it and take the initiative themselves in respect of this report. If they think there is a matter to be investigated, I am sure they can do that. We will certainly refer it to the IOC ethics committee, which will shortly be chaired by Ban Ki-moon. People of stature are on this committee. We will send it to the president, Thomas Bach, who has an interest in it. Obviously, we will take an intense interest in OCI governance in the coming weeks and months as a result of this report, which has some very strong things to say about it. As a funder of the OCI in the past and, hopefully, in the future, that is something in which we must take a serious interest.

Ticket-touting legislation is due to be introduced. It is certainly on the agenda and we will look to accelerate it. The committee should not ask me to take immediate decisions. I am just telling it that those are the areas we are considering and will continue to consider seriously. If the committee has any suggestions about where we should go, we are very happy to hear them. I would like this to be considered in a non-political way as far as possible because no athlete flies the Fianna Fáil or Independent Alliance flag when he or she goes to the Olympics. Athletes are there to represent the nation and it is my job and, to some extent, everybody's job to see that the reputation of the nation is enhanced by the athletes and not denigrated, reduced or in any way sullied by the OCI or the IOC.

Deputy O'Keeffe said there was hearsay during the London Olympics. I think we started with that. There were many stories and rumours about what was going on at the time. I was not aware of that but I accept what Deputy O'Keeffe said. I never saw any evidence of any sort for it. It was long before my time but if there was any evidence of wrongdoing of that sort or any malpractice, I guess it would have been investigated very thoroughly. I would add what I hope is a reasonable reservation regarding what Deputy O'Keeffe said. This area and all these high-profile areas are full of innuendo, gossip and rumour all the time, some of which is probably true and some of which is undoubtedly false. I did not hear it but in answer to the Deputy's question, had I been there or if the same thing happened, I could not possibly have acted on hearsay otherwise I would be running around day and night. What we need is hard evidence when it comes to acting on issues of this sort. The moment we received any hard evidence at all, or there was even controversy, we acted on it very quickly and that was last year.

The Deputy mentioned the Grant Thornton report. That was stopped by the OCI because of the threat of an injunction. That is why it did not go ahead. There was a threat of an injunction from one of the parties involved and that was why it was stopped.

On the next question, I think the Deputy mentioned illegality and what was illegal. We are not alleging illegality at any stage.