Mr. Jason McLoughlin:

I thank the Deputy. The technical advice is directly linked to the capital activity on the campus. The capital activity went from about €2.2 million in 2020 up to about €8 million in 2021. That is for consultancy costs, and for pushing business plans, planning and design. The other big one there was other expenditure, and that was for the campaigns we ran, including the Let's Get Back campaign, which cost €723,000 in 2021. We also had the community sports hubs campaign for €300,000.

Regarding trajectory and moving forward, the technical advice area would increase as the capital activity is increasing on the campus. On the other expenditure lying under the consultancy heading, we would expect this to come back in line, because even in 2020 we had the Keep Well campaign, all directly linked to Covid-19. We would expect the expenditure under the other headings to come back down, but under the technical advice heading, we expect it to increase based on the increased capital activity on the campus.

This is relatively straightforward question in relation to the Covid-19 resilience scheme, which was a significant component of Sport Ireland's budget in 2020 and 2021. It was €89 million in 2020 and €65 million in 2021. We all understand the reasons it was put in place. I understand the reasoning behind the three main governing bodies receiving the bulk of the money. Are we going to see that taper off completely and will the organisations be in a position to survive without the additional funding as we come out of the Covid period?