Mr. Richard Fahey:

This is probably a relatively minor issue for a sport like tennis, but for other sports this is an issue. Perhaps 70% of the funding we generate, in terms of our income, comes from within the sport, from things like capitation fees, tournament levies etc. Some 24% of our funding comes from Sport Ireland and Sport Northern Ireland. That figure used to be higher, but it is less now. We have four part-time development officers who cover the whole island, so the level of service we are able to offer some of the clubs is probably not enough to justify the paying of the capitation fees. There are some clubs that just do not want to pay and which want to do their own thing. Our challenge is to encourage those clubs to affiliate to us. If they do not, we have no mechanism - and no responsibility, I suppose - to engage with them and to ensure that, from a regulatory point of view, things like safeguarding are in place.