Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 15 June 2023

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements 2021 - Sport Ireland and Sport Ireland Facilities DAC

9:30 am

Dr. Una May:

I am happy to share with the Deputy a little bit of an insight into the costs that were incurred, and I will refer to my colleague, Mr. Jason McLoughlin, around the future trajectory of that pathway, and where we are going. At the time of our financial statements in 2021, we were coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. We had invested significantly in a number of campaigns that would have cost us quite a bit of money around encouraging and supporting people and giving them the confidence to return to sport. We were also part of the Government's Keep Well initiative during the pandemic, where we developed resources for people to exercise at home. We provided all kinds of resources, and invested in programmes for a phone helpline to enable older people to call for support and advice around taking part in physical activity.

In addition to all the campaign work we did around encouraging people to return to sport, which was a very important part of our role at that time, we were also at that stage building the development of the campus master plan and we would have incurred significant costs around the early stages of the design and development of the work that went behind the development of the master plan.