Ms Mary O'Connor:

Under the Women in Sport policy, Sport Ireland has just released a Women in Sport coaching research report. Nearly 2,500 female coaches completed the survey. A total of 86% of them felt there was a lack of a female coaching network, so Sport Ireland is now going to work on that. It is very important to look not just at the foundation level. There is a glut of female coaches at young levels but there is a distinct lack of elite female coaches at the higher levels and from a high performance point of view for both international and national teams. I know Sport Ireland has just set up a women in coaching working group with plans for an elite female coaching network. That is very important. We need to have elite female coaches training our elite teams, both male and female. That is a good piece of work that is going on at the moment.