Mr. John Treacy:

Athletes are very resilient. If plans are put off, they readjust those plans. They are also very good planners. That is what training is all about - planning properly. They dusted themselves down, started training and have a year to go now. The hard part is the lack of competitions leading into these games and qualification. The first half of the year will be vitally important because competition gets one ready for the next competition, which is the Olympic games.

On the European Cross Country Championships, I was on a phone call with Athletics Ireland and the European Federation. We pitched for it in 2021. It was supposed to go to Italy in 2021 but now we have it then and Italy has it in 2022.

Policy is hugely important. We have developed a participation plan which links in with policy priorities and we are waiting for those to be published by the Department. We are ready to go with its implementation. The policy is an excellent document. There is €5.8 million around funding for the latter half of this year for some NGBs which might not have applied for funding in an earlier time because the big impact of financial costs were not with the governing bodies of sport. Now, when membership dues are due, in December or January, is when it will really come into effect. We have some money left aside for that purpose, so that the NGBs can get back into action as quickly as possible. We hope that by spring or summer the athletes will be in full flow and sport will hopefully be back to normal, all going well.