Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

In 2008, which was my first year as Chairman of what was then the Irish Sports Council, now Sport Ireland, I had to meet the three field sport organisations and cut their budget in one year by 30%. The funding has never been restored to 2008 levels. The FAI at that time was in receipt of approximately €4 million. Its funding is now at €2.565 million. In a sense, over the past ten years, the FAI has been in a steady state. The first year we had an increase in our budget was this year. Previously, there was designated funding for sport, for organisations like the GPA or the women's GPA, for example. Last year, funding was made available for the women's international soccer team, in the context of promoting women in sport. We gave it the biggest grant, for the reason just outlined by the Deputy. The second reason is that the sport is heavily involved in areas of urban and rural deprivation. It has a high level of inclusion and significant funding requirements for clubs that would not be in salubrious areas of our cities, towns and rural areas. We are conscious of that fact. Many of the programmes that are specified in the documentation we receive from the FAI are focused on that so-----