Ms Avalon Everett:

I will speak to the shared island application. HSI, in conjunction with the Irish Pony Club, based in the Republic, and Area 17, which is the Pony Club UK section in the North, and combined with the Northern Ireland breeders' organisation, submitted an application to the Department of the Taoiseach, but yesterday we were notified that due to the high number of applications, our application was not successful. It was a cross-Border training-type initiative for youths with a sport horse breeding element mixed in. We will go for the second round of funding if it is open. It was a strong application and brought together a few entities that had never collaborated in the past. That was a real positive, particularly for Area 17, which is not affiliated to or connected to us in any shape or form. We have kind of built a bridge there in terms of its connection with the Irish Pony Club in the South and us. That is a positive. Regrettably, however, we did not get the funding we looked for.

Sport Northern Ireland has supported our high-performance athletes who are born in Northern Ireland through direct subsidies or athlete bursaries. We have a number of them directly funded through us, eight at the moment who are on Paris podium pathways. We just administer the funding directly to them.