Ms Mary O'Connor:

Following on from page 3 of the opening statement, I welcome the Senator's comment regarding the great work that has been done by the sector. That is welcome. Inclusion is a broad church and it is ever-evolving as well. It may be no surprise to the committee, but the first thing I would look at is funding because it can underpin the resourcing of policy becoming practice. That is the one thing to take away from today. We spoke about the 81 NGBs which are members of the Federation of Irish Sport and they vary in size. Some are totally volunteer-led in their work and as a consequence of that, they are not able to complete the inclusion options that some of the bigger NGBs are able to do. If we fund these organisations, it will help them to reach out to a larger audience. We must remember that our niche and emerging sports are very popular with people from multiple ethnicities. We must look at that as well and we need to broaden that view of inclusion. Funding is the key thing in order to underpin the policy becoming practice.