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:

Again, I will invite Mr. McLoughlin to add to this but primarily, the most important part of the Covid funding was about addressing losses made by the governing bodies in lost memberships and lost event income. There were a number of categories of the Covid funding and helping with losses was a very important part of that. We also provided them with additional support to develop initiatives that would encourage people to return to sport. Many of those initiatives continue to be funded through other sources of funding, be it our core funding, dormant account funding or a number of other areas of support. At the time, we were very clear to the governing bodies that these were not going to be long-standing funds. They were not to recruit people and there were not to be long-standing commitments to people's jobs or anything like that involved in the funds we were providing. The primary use of the funding was about making up for loss. Mr. McLoughlin might like to add to that.