Dr. Una May:

The Deputy is absolutely right. The big sports did receive a large amount of the funding. That was based on something we have encouraged over the years, which is that sports are not to depend fully on the Government. They have to generate their own funding and that involves commercial income. In the big sports, that predominately involves matters around ticketing for events etc. When all events were cancelled, there was a risk. This is an issue for us. We appreciate and acknowledge it as an issue for us to address. We appreciate the value of an NGB, whereas a club does not always necessarily always see all the work that goes on behind the scenes in an NGB to ensure that insurance is in place and that coaching structures are protected and developed. That is not necessarily seen by a club. From our point of view, it was absolutely critical that we maintained the infrastructure of sport to ensure that as we came out of the pandemic, sports still existed and there were opportunities. That fund was very important for us to ensure those structures existed beyond the pandemic.