Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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I did not spend as much time on the constituency as my predecessor.

Regarding anti-doping, the Sports Council spends about €1 million per annum on this area and it was stated that the council engaged 868 tests in the past year. It seems amazing that out of 868 tests conducted under the national testing programme, only three anti-doping violations were recorded. On an international basis, and from anything one might read about the area, that seems an incredibly low figure. There seems to be far higher ethical standards among the Irish athletic community than seems to be the case internationally. I wonder whether this is related to the fact that the testing takes place during competition but there is no out-of-competition testing. It is much easier to avoid detection when the test is taking place, but random testing outside of competition times is more effective. To what extent is the council dealing with that side of the equation? We have very high performance athletes at both amateur and international level and it seems that the level of testing that results in a violation occurring would not be anywhere near any international standards. Are we doing the job in the most effective manner possible?