Ms Helen O'Rourke:

As Ms O'Connor said, I do not believe it is good at times to be comparing to others and especially to the individual sports. We are doing a lot right in Ireland. Let us consider Australia, which is a sports mad nation, and the role that ladies Gaelic football has in the development of the Southern Football League, SFL there in recent years. Players we have brought up from youth to develop their skills are now playing a major role over there. Australia is looking at how we got to the level that we are in this country. Their teams are basically where we were 30 years ago. They want to develop the coverage, numbers and network of clubs we have. There has been a sharing, especially this year, of a number of our players who have gone to Australia. They are able to play there and to develop the game over there and come back here. The same has happened in rugby in recent years, when one considers the number of players who have come through Gaelic games and who then go on to rugby and so on. There is a lot of sharing going on and a lot of development within the associations. We have done a lot and achieved a lot in a number of years.