Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

Not similar conversations with any Minister but it is no secret because we appeared before this committee under Senator O'Mahony's chairmanship when we took on the Irish Athletic Boxing Association, IABA, over the Billy Walsh situation where we asserted governance and took a very strong position at the time, as we have done recently in regard to the IABA around governance. Over the years we have had conversations with some sporting federations about the appointment of high performance directors to the effect that these have to be done transparently and in a way that we get the best people and that they cannot be just given to people by way of a "thank you" for an appointment. We have had to say that if our athletes have to perform internationally, they have to have the highest level of training and support. It is a monthly issue with us that sometimes we have difficult conversations with some federations about the way they conduct their business. We do not publicly say that but it is a matter of conversation with them around their budgeting where we believe the templates for the budgeting may not be met from time to time or where appointments are being made and we have to assert what some of them see as interference by Sport Ireland in their internal affairs. The most recent example of that was the stand we took on Bernard Dunne's appointment as the high performance director in that we were not going to have a repeat of what happened in the Billy Walsh case where he put up the team for international competition and another body changed it.