Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)

Ní raibh mé anseo ar an Máirt agus ní raibh deis agam comhghairdeas a dhéanamh le Martin Hughes. I was not here on Tuesday as I was in Brussels. I congratulate Martin and look forward to working with him over the next few years.

We had a very robust debate relating to the FAI's safeguarding issues at yesterday's sitting of the Oireachtas committee on sport. I will not get into that here, but I will just say the committee is not satisfied with the answers we received. Senator Comyn was also there. We have to call them back in again in relation to what transpired yesterday. One issue I did not have an opportunity to raise yesterday was in relation to governance. The FAI has called an EGM for 4 October. There is an agenda item on the EGM paper that relates to a special resolution on the articles of association. A deeper dive into the appendix shows that this is calling for the term limits of board members to be extended to reflect the proposed term limits of three years instead of two years and subsequent changes in rotation cycles.

This cannot happen. In a very basic sense, the FAI wants to give permission to board directors to stay in position for nine years instead of eight and for the chair and vice-chair to stay in position for 12 years instead of eight. This is completely contradictory to the understanding the Government has with the FAI. There is a memorandum of understanding in place. It is utterly tied to funding. Sport Ireland has been a keeping a tracker of the governance review and of the memorandum of understanding. Item 64 of the review relates to term limits. It has been identified as having been completed. It says there should limits to the terms of office for board members, which are currently eight years in total, and that the limit for all members of the board should be eight years, comprising four years by two terms. The FAI wants to change that. It would, for example, allow a nine- or ten-year term. This is tied to Government funding. It was raised briefly at the end of the hearing yesterday and Sport Ireland was not aware that this AGM is due to happen next week. I wanted to put it on the record in this House to make sure that the Minister knows that the committee knows. As I said earlier, this memorandum of understanding is tied to Government funding. As of yesterday, the FAI is already in a little bit of hot water again in relation to its safeguarding but it is very important that we do not lose sight of overall governance. If this agenda goes through at the EGM next week, it will have to be raised with the Minister in terms of Government funding.