Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

In response to Deputy Barry's question, we are given a block grant of approximately €50 million for recurrent funding for Sport Ireland and the national federations, including the Olympic Council of Ireland and Paralympics Ireland. On occasion, the Government specifies designated funding arrangements. In the recent past, that has been the case in regard to the Gaelic Players Association and the Women's Gaelic Players Association, so sometimes there are specific elements of our grant earmarked specifically, and we have no decision-making role except to enter into agreements as to how that money is spent. In 2010, when the cuts were introduced, we had to cut back field sports by about 33% and meet with those associations to do so. To answer the Deputy's question, on the decision around the distribution of moneys given to us by the Exchequer through the Minister and the taxpayer, we largely have autonomy in what is done with it unless the Government specifically, by policy decision, designates certain expenditure, and I have given two examples. I do not think there are any other examples where there is a designated element of the funding.

We have withheld the funding to the OCI on the basis that we anticipated at the time that this would be a 12-week report and not a 12-month report. That time has moved on. Since then, a number of changes have taken place in the OCI itself and commitments have been made which Ms Sarah Keane and Ms Sarah O'Shea indicated to the committee. The Minister has made certain statements to the committee. In fairness to everyone, we do not want to penalise the OCI for past mistakes. We have a commitment to our athletes in PyeongChang and in Tokyo, and we need to assist and work with the OCI to put all the arrangements in place. They are highly technical arrangements about training camps and where we will base ourselves for Tokyo, etc. Ms Keane raised some of the issues there.

We would like to get into a position where we can work with the Government, the Department and the OCI. What threshold has been reached? Are we happy and convinced that threshold has been reached to allow us to release the balance of the funding and to convey that funding? The OCI has staff commitments that we pay. It has office commitments that we pay, like we do in other federations, and we would not like to put those at risk. We do not want to get into a situation where, to resolve a historical problem, we penalise people on their ongoing funding. We need to support them and to continue to support them. We need to work with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Department officials, Mr. Ken Spratt, assistant secretary, Ms Keane and her team, and our own high performance team in Sport Ireland. As everybody has indicated here, it is the athletes and those who support them, whether volunteers or their families, who have to be the primary concern. The Chairman asked about the families and their athletes after my introduction. We need to engage in a national commitment that we put behind us the disaster in Rio de Janeiro. There were a number of disasters in Rio de Janeiro, not just this one. There were others. Our athletes performed enormously well, and we have great athletes at the moment, as the summer has shown. We need to commit to them. I would not like to think we are penalising the OCI, and indirectly the athletes, because of issues we can address ourselves, as sports administrators and guardians of the public purse in that regard, with the Minister. I like to think we would work together and not put up any impossible barrier.

I am glad the Minister rowed back a bit yesterday.

I do not know when this ticketing issue with the ATR or Pro10 arose or which jurisdiction it might take place in, so we should not make our own organisation a hostage of something we have collectively condemned as a country, as a people and as a committee. We should work with it to the benefit of the very people the committee has outlined time and again. At this stage, I would be reluctant for us to invoke the powers in section 12 of the Act where the Minister would give us a written policy instruction about this. We should try to avoid this. We should see what we can do and give reassurances to the Minister and this committee that we believe the trajectory of implementation of the reforms the committee has identified for good governance is being implemented and that we would release the funding accordingly. It might not all be done together. We might do it incrementally but the certainly the accumulated backlog of money would be paid. This would be a matter for our board.

The Chairman sort of chided me earlier about the families. This is not beyond a simple resolution in terms of the tickets. I do not want to interfere in the OCI but it is not beyond the common ability of everyone involved to ensure that regardless of whatever tickets we get for the NOC family, that this is identified; that the events they are for are identified; that there is a portal, office or person in the headquarters of the OCI, something with which we will help, where families can apply for those well in advance once people qualify; that the immediate members of the family are catered for immediately; and that there is no doubt because they cannot make a commitment to travel to Tokyo unless they will see their sons and daughters in the event. Nobody would ask them to do that. With all our commitments and knowing what we know, good, bad or indifferent and regardless of whoever was at fault for that, we should be capable of rectifying that in the interests of our athletes, their families and the organisations that are charged by the Exchequer to support them or internationally. I hope that one of the committee's recommendations coming out of here would be that this would be done.

In response to Deputy Barry, without giving any knee-jerk reaction to the necessity for good governance, and they are working to achieve that, we would incrementally release the funds on the basis of the checklist in agreement with the Minister and the officials from his Department, with whom we all work.