THE breakdown in a relationship, once at the core of Irish sport, was acrimonious and apparently final yesterday after the minister of Sport, Bernard Allen, and the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, Pat Hickey, had clashed yet again.

Ever since the Olympics in Atlanta last summer, Allen has been seen to distance himself from his old ally.

Now when the coup de grace was delivered and the Olympic Council of Ireland was stripped of its role as the paymaster of Irish sport, in Allen's adoption of the new national plan, Hickey wasn't even permitted the right of reply.

After a delay of almost an hour, he was ushered into a function room in Dublin Castle and there, together with representatives of the various national federations, listened as first Allen and then, John Treacy told of the demise of the OCI as an influential grouping.

Even as the OCI president prepared to deliver his riposte, PR executive John Redmond announced that the briefing was over and all assembled were ushered in the direction of the tea and fairy cakes.

"There were no questions allowed - we were simply gagged," he muttered darkly. "If this is what John Bruton means by transparent government, the sooner we get back to normal values the better.

"Democratically elected sports officials who had given their time to turn up for the briefing, were kept waiting for an hour, when they got to Dublin Castle. Yes, you could say that we were treated very shabbily."

Classifying the exercise as a job for the boys one, Hickey was dismissive of the strategy group's findings. In particular, he ridiculed the Minister's failure to extract a definite commitment from Government on National Lottery funding, after 15 months of talks.

Announcing that he would convene a meeting of all 27 national federations affiliated to the OCI within the next few weeks, he announced that their answer to Allen would be made in due course.

In the meantime, he issued an 11-point statement for the minister to be going on with. In it, he accuses him of attempting to politicise sport in Ireland and move away from the democratically elected sports bodies.

Liam Aylward, the Fianna Fail spokesman for sport, welcomed the report but said that its better parts, had been stolen, lock stock and barrel from his party's policy document.

"The aspiration to give sport a place in the Cabinet, can only have been made in the last couple of weeks - it certainly didn't figure in the group's earlier discussions," he said.

"Given the Coalition's track record in spending on sport and the fact that lottery funding gets smaller by the year, it is reasonable to question the figure of 25 per cent set out in the report."

Chris Wall, BLE's international secretary, said that any move to elevate sport to full ministerial status was deserving of support. "Given the potential of sport in any number of areas, this is wholly sensible," he said.

"I also welcome the appointment of John Treacy, one of our former athletes as the executive chairman of the Irish Sports Council. Given his depth of experience, he is ideally qualified to do a big job."