Swimmers react as McDaid puts £30,000 into a.g.m.

The Minister for Tourism and Sport has given £30,000 to fund this weekend's a.g.m. of the Irish Amateur Swimming Association while top Irish swimmers continue to struggle without any funding. One of Ireland's leading swimmers, Nick O'Hare, has greeted Mr McDaid's decision with anger and disbelief.

"That is a kick in the face to swimmers," said O'Hare, who lives in Hamburg and trains with a German club. "He [Dr McDaid] won't talk to us. He won't speak to us. It's an insult and it really makes me angry."

It is believed that part of the sum is to cover the mileage expenses of swimming officials attending the meeting, at which it is proposed to vote on structures for the association and positions in the new Swim Ireland body.

The £30,000, seen by some as the first step towards restoration of funding for the new body, has caused anger. This is because Ireland's elite swimmers have had all funding stopped since shortly after the Olympic coach, Derry O'Rourke, was jailed for 12 years last February for child sex abuse.

Since then several swimmers including O'Hare, Chantal Gibney and Lee Kelleher, have received nothing because of the Minister's decision that no money would be available until the IASA "got their house in order".

"I really don't believe it," said O'Hare. "I mean, it's a year now and we haven't got a penny. How does he view sport? I can't believe this. Swimming is what the sport is about. If you gave £30,000 to 10 swimmers you could budget for 10 months. I'm over here living on a shoestring, sleeping in one room on a mattress. I've no transport, can't afford to go out, and my money is drying up," he added.

The meeting in the Ashling Hotel is likely to be highly divisive. Furthermore, the funding reinforces the view in some quarters that officials have priority over swimmers, even those at the top of the sport.

The swimmers have argued for the past six months that there should be a mechanism by which they would receive funds directly while the IASA sorted itself out. The money was to be used to aid their drive towards the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. The Minister claimed this could not be done.

"What did the swimmers do that was so wrong to have their funding stopped, and what did the officials do that was so right to get their funding back?" asked Ms Carole Walshe of the Trojan swimming club in Dublin.

"The whole sport is demoralised. There have been no competitions since the National Championships last July," she added.

Mr John Treacy, chief executive of the Irish Sports Council, defended the Minister's decision yesterday. He said the funding aimed to speed up the process of change so that full funding could eventually be restored.