Mr. Ronan Corrigan:

The Deputy's first question was on whether sponsorship comes from HSI to ourselves. The answer to that is "No". HSI has some small sponsorship arrangements in place for the high performance teams which it administers and sends abroad through their chefs d'équipe. Their funding for that element of it, as Mr. Potterton alluded to, comes directly from Sport Ireland. It is the core fund and the high performance fund, which the affiliates are also obliged to contribute towards. As has been mentioned, we have traditionally done that. There is a 2:1 model for the distribution of the funding. It does not always meet the needs and requirements of the entity but that is the model. We are concerned that a large amount of it disappears in administration. We consider an awful lot of it to be a duplication of activities that take place across all the disciplines and across all the affiliates, which could assist if funding was better utilised. I am not trying to put people out of jobs but it is clear that we carry out a role which is being duplicated further on. Most of that work is now done electronically online or directly by the athletes themselves. It is not a case of doing entries any more; it is just confirming entries now.

Our other major concern across all the disciplines - Mr. Harper and everybody else alluded to it - is that of the money that comes from Sport Ireland, which we referenced, very little if any finds its way to the athletes, the owners or the producers. It is predominantly utilised for the payment of high performance chefs d'équipe, trainers, etc. We are looking for more to put into that but we know that cannot happen if there is not a good structure in place that everybody can stand behind. That is what we are really looking for.

An administrative review would have to be carried out on how the money is being spent. The high performance element would certainly have to be looked at. I can speak for our discipline, eventing and everyone. We have European medalists across the board. Every affiliate here has brought home medalists, from children through to the senior teams. In any other sport that would be worth approximately €1 million of corporate investment that would go towards funding all these activities on top of what the State has. What we are saying is that we have multiple athletes, breeders, producers and riders out there who are deprived of a chance of going and being able to shine. If they do not have a parent, sponsor, supporter or owner who has the means to put them forward, they have to sell that horse. It is like Mr. Potterton says; they have to sell the horse to survive. There is an underutilisation of our success. The reason for that, to a large extent, is that we are not joined up. That is what we are looking for all the time. We bring them from the grassroots right up to the minute they get on the ferry but once they get on the ferry they seem to become somebody else's property. That is a problem. They should not be somebody else's property. We have Irish eventing teams, showjumping teams, dressage teams and para teams and they should be rightfully called Irish. They should be supported with one block and one plan from start to finish. We should be able to follow that route for them. That is one of our biggest problems. We have multiple entities competing for ownership of success. We are creating the success. We do not want to own it, we want to support it, but we do not want to get into a kicking match about who does own it. How would we improve it? One of the best ways to improve it, because it would bring investment into our sport and industry, would be to get everybody singing off the same hymn sheet. They all need to be sitting on the same bench with the same ambition. I refer to HSI and all the affiliates. We are saying here that the only way that is going to happen is if the board is directed with an understanding of what the affiliates, the industry and the stakeholders are trying to do.

I hope that answers the question.