Mr. John Treacy:

We have sports inclusion development officers in place right around the country, mainly through the local sports partnerships. They are trying to get people involved in sport by knocking on doors, getting people out and participating. That is a huge step in respect of disability sports and for people in disadvantaged areas as well. It is a critical area now that it is happening. Through dormant account funding we were able to do that and make that investment in recent times. It was probably one of the casualties of the cutbacks. We are reinvesting in those programmes again now. It is important. We have also been investing in the Cara centre. It does a lot of the training around disability sports and disability training. That is also critical for us.

In disadvantaged communities, the way to make an impact is by knocking on doors and getting people out by starting clubs in those communities and finding the leadership. Many of the NGBs invest much time in that work. On the high performance side, the Irish Sports Council made a policy decision very early on when it was getting off the ground that athletes, able bodied and from the Paralympic movement, would be funded at the same level. There was parity. We invest heavily in the Paralympics and those programmes. I will ask Mr. McDermott to fill in the committee a little more on that.