Mr. Kieran Mulvey:

With regard to the policy direction, we are not told to give a specific figure. In the context of the most recent discussions last year on the budget, we were facing the case where a succession of cuts were coming in. The Ministers were able to retrieve money from other allocations within the Department so we came out with approximately €43 million. There was an indication of what the council was to do; for example, that the women in sport and older person in sport programmes would be protected, along with smaller NGBs. We were not told a precise figure but it was indicated that we should try to keep things at the levels from last year. We had an outline cut with the budget we had, and we had to decide whether to hit the bigger organisations for 10% or smaller organisations for 5%. After discussion with the Minister, we would get a certain policy direction and reallocate the money. The budget decisions are ours.