Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

As regards whether politicians are making a difference, in my opinion, they are, in particular in terms of the provision of funding. While we would welcome more funding, significant funding is currently being provided. The revitalisation of the capital programme this year made a big difference. If that were to become an annual rather than tri-annual or quadruple event, it would be good because our facilities need to be maintained. Tremendous developments are taking place at Sports Campus Ireland in Abbotstown. It is hoped this will result in the development of world-class facilities. The indoor track at the facility in Athlone was also recently developed. The development and provision of facilities is an area on which ourselves and our Northern Ireland counterparts can co-operate. There is no point in our developing a velodrome if one is being developed in the North and in our replicating its development of international standard indoor facilities. It is easier to travel to the North of Ireland than it is to the UK, Spain, Portugal and so on. To a large degree, our co-operation is very cemented. I was recently on the interview board in Northern Ireland in regard to the appointment of the new chief executive. There is good dynamic with Northern Ireland in terms of co-operation.

Reference was made to gold standard nations. Years ago, Australia, which won everything but has since fallen behind, was considered a gold standard nation. Ireland is now being viewed as a gold standard nation in terms of the level of participation by Irish athletes and the number of medals being won. As I said earlier, our director was, unfortunately, poached by the US, which is a tribute in its own right to the standards we are achieving. Part of the Olympic debrief was to consider what other countries were doing and achieving.

One area in which we have a major lacuna in terms of high performance is talent identification. We need to look at how to identify the young sixth class student or second level first year student who is a potentially good performing individual rather than a collective athlete such as those mentioned earlier who are individual extraordinary achievers in the own sports. We must ensure we have sufficient funding to target exceptional talent in our schools. These students could be identified by our physical education teachers or national governing bodies. We must identify, mentor, protect and encourage talent. We do not yet have a system in place to do this.

As chairman of the Irish Sports Council I believe indigenous Irish companies should be funding the council. They should be willing to provide €50,000 to €100,000, which are not unreasonable amounts, to fund sports. Reference was made earlier to Diageo. I am speaking of indigenous Irish companies who are multinationals that are making huge profits. It is hoped that with tax reliefs they might give €100,000 to €250,000 to the Irish Sports Council for talent identification. When these companies are successful they should identify with our success. We need to be able to bring athletes forward, cocoon them and provide them with the best performance opportunities and good facilities. We must also meet the needs of individual's requiring the attention of high performance directors or coaches. This costs money and requires long-term commitment. It is what we need to do. Currently, we are only identifying talent at 14 or 15 years of age, which is almost too late. I call on Irish companies that are successful internationally and have no baggage to fund sports development. I am speaking in this regard of clean industries such as the agrifood, services and financial industries.