Mr. Richard Fahey:

Tennis has the "Enjoy Tennis" programme which is aimed at people with disabilities. We work with people from five different disability groups in 65 of our 200 clubs around the country. From that point of view, it is an area we feel passionate about. I mentioned earlier the three things required to make a sport happen. We have decent facilities but we could do with more indoor courts. We do not have one in Munster and that affects our programmes, but facilities are generally decent.

What we lack are the people. We need development officers, etc., who can go out and train people who can then work with people with disabilities. Our role as a governing body is to help people to help themselves. We are going out to the clubs and helping them to help their members. That is what we are trying to do. However, we do not have the staff. As I said before, we have four part-time development officers to cover the whole country for our sport. That is an area where we are very weak.

It is the same in disadvantaged areas. We do not have many tennis clubs or facilities in disadvantaged areas, which is a difficulty. However, we have a programme called Parks Tennis which we actively support. It has been running for 40 years and has done fantastic work in disadvantaged communities throughout the country. Once again, however, where we are lacking is in the funding to roll out and deliver those programmes. A small bit of extra funding can help us do a massive amount in a very short time.