Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are very welcome. I had some conversations with some of them in advance of the meeting. It is to be hoped they will have continued success. I do not think they put down that they won team of the year at the sports awards last year as well, which was another achievement. I thank them for the opening statement. There are things about the organisation that I had not realised, so it is very useful to get that context. It would be very useful if the briefing document was included with the report that goes to Sport Ireland and the Minister because I found that very useful. There would have been some questions that are answered in this so I thank the witnesses for pre-empting the questions in terms of how one breaks down the various provinces. It is quite useful to benchmark that into the future regarding where the growth is. It is nice to have that set as a base.

The all-Ireland aspect is very interesting. It would be quite interesting to hear something about that such as how well that works. Why would Hockey Ireland not get TV revenues if they are available? Can something be done about this? That is one of the dominant forms of income in some of the bigger sports where gate receipts are becoming a more diminished aspect of funding. It would be interesting to see what is possible there and how that might work.

The success of the team has been a shop window for others to get involved. I am not surprised that there was an upsurge after that. That kind of mainstream coverage of the events is critically important. It is quite amazing how women's sports tend to be the under-represented sports, but when they are put out there in a shop window, they are equally attractive. There is a lesson there for people who are programming to make sure they are properly covered.

The other thing I wanted to ask about is VAT in sport. Will the witnesses send us a note about the shortcomings and what could improve that? Obviously, there is a differentiation between commercial sports played at professional level from which there is an income and the other side of it where people who are playing are trying to hold down jobs and fundraise at the same time.

I was really pleased to see attention paid to the governance - the boring governance aspect. It will remain boring as long as it is done right. When it is done properly, the focus ends up being on the sport itself and not on issues that are about failures in terms of administration.