Mr. Colm McGinty:

The FAI's letter requested that Sport Ireland consider facilitating the early drawdown request. There would have been previous discussions around the grant process, the financial cycles, the likely time for board decisions and so on. We would have obtained information on the programme delivery timelines and it is fair to say that our preference would be to wait. However, as our chief executive has outlined, we work with organisations and want to maintain the stability of their programmes. We want to make sure that we get good outcomes from a participation and development point of view. If we can be flexible, we will be and it is entirely within our procedures to pay grants early. Certainly we were given suitable assurances that there were no impending financial issues or anything of that nature.