Mr. John Treacy:

I am joined by Mr. Paul McDermott, director of national governing bodies, or NGBs, and high performance. I will be very brief. Sport Ireland places NGBs at the centre of its work. It is a strategic priority. We work with NGBs to ensure they are very strong, fit for purpose and in compliance with good governance. Many of them are now on the road to compliance with the community and voluntary code also. We also ensure they have financial and taxation policies in place. We place a huge emphasis on child protection, risk management and all of those critical elements to which every governing body must sign up to ensure they have good systems in place.

Governing bodies provide the framework for the delivery of sport across the spectrum from grassroots all the way up to high performance. They are a vital component for delivering on the world stage. This morning, we allocated €1.8 million to our carded athletes while earlier this year we announced €10.8 million for our core national governing bodies, not counting the three field sport bodies, namely, the FAI, GAA and IRFU. We also allocate through NGBs €600,000 for the women's sport programme and €7 million for high performance sports. Through the Department, we were able to secure an extra €380,000 to meet some of our critical key areas which needed funding in 2018. These include the World Equestrian Games and Eisenhower trophy, which will be held this year, as well as the World Hockey Championships and events like that which are a real priority for us. We were at a high of €13.8 million in funding for our NGB sector but we are now down at €10.8 million.

Obviously, we place a huge emphasis on increasing support for the NGBs which deliver for us right across the spectrum. They deliver real quality programmes on participation. We have seen increases in every aspect of Ireland's participation in sport. NGBs offer a wide diversity of activity and that choice is there. We also fund the local sports partnership and will be making announcements in that regard with the Minister tomorrow. All of the sporting organisations we fund definitely provide the taxpayer with value for money. As the bar is being raised in terms of compliance, there is a critical need to invest in NGBs as we go forward. They need staff and to have the right people in place to drive organisations forward. They need to ensure they keep volunteers involved and comply fully with all of the regulations. They must provide leadership in sport.

Critically, NGBs need more core funding. We have seen no increase in high performance funding since 2011 and our competitors are probably losing ground as more countries come into the high performance space and invest more and more. It is a critical piece. I was delighted to hear the Minister say this morning that one of the things he wanted to do was increase capital funding for governing bodies. That would be critical for high performance sports leading into Tokyo to provide equipment, including boats. There was a huge impact in 2012 when the Department provided funding to our rowers and sailors for boats and those were our two medal winning sports. It is also a critical piece.

Sport Ireland and governing bodies have benefitted from dormant accounts funding at a rate of over €2 million per year. That is driven by our own Department working hard with us to ensure systems are in place to allocate that funding and make the case for governing bodies in sport. It is money well spent and we get a great return on the investment. We commend the work NGBs do to deliver for sport in the country.