ISC take opportunity to respond to Hickey

While Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) president Pat Hickey was just one step away from a Neville Chamberlain moment in Wednesday's OCI presidential election campaign launch, it appears that Irish sport is as far away as ever from "peace for our time".

Less than 24 hours after Hickey's proposed armistice, disagreement has again resumed.

At the normally mellow Irish Sports Council (ISC) annual grant allocation to sporting federations, chairman Pat O'Neill took time out to announce that barely a breath before Hickey had offered the olive branch, he had managed to tread all over the ISC's sensibilities during an interview with Pat Kenny on RTE radio.

During the Kenny discussion Hickey declared that he believed it was the ISC's intention to subsume the OCI and remove its independence. While stressing that the ISC have no hand or act in the elections, O'Neill baulked at Hickey's claims.

"We are not prepared to leave on the public record statements which are untrue and which we can only surmise are intended to cause embarrassment and difficulty for the council," said O'Neill, who went on to point out that the Act under which the ISC was established disallows any such development.

Hickey also inferred that Irish sports federations are fearful of raising issues with the ISC because it may impact on their level of funding. Again O'Neill took issue.

"He (Hickey) stated that he is there to take up these matters on behalf of his members . . . Since my appointment as chairperson on July 1st 1999 I have not received a single representation from Hickey regarding any complaint relating to funding by a member of the Olympic Council."

On a day when the ISC announced grants of £8.5 million to 65 national governing bodies, it was unlikely that there would be another significant departure from the normal script. This year's figures compare favourably with £4.81 million in 2000 and £4.17 million in 1999. Allocations of £4.9 million were detailed yesterday with other grants to be announced later. Boxing's money, for example, will not be finalised until a costing on the World Amateur Boxing Championships, which take place in Belfast in June, are completed.

The figure also fails to include donations to the GAA (£1 million), the FAI (£1 million) or the IRFU (£500,000) for programmes to promote increased underage participation. Support will also be given to Irish sailing to help prepare the Irish team to compete in the World Laser Championships at Crosshaven. It is the first time the World Championships of an Olympic discipline will be hosted in the Republic of Ireland.

Sports which have amalgamated, such as athletics, cricket, swimming and hockey, will also receive increased assistance to build and consolidate infrastructure for their members.

Athletics tops the list with £519,162 while equestrian sports and sailing each received over £300,000. Martial arts other than judo are not yet recognised by the ISC because they have no governing body in Ireland. Funding for organisations such as the paralympics and the OCI will be announced at a later date.

In the first year of the Anti-Doping Programme, the ISC said its target of 600 tests was exceeded. By the end of 2000, 620 tests were conducted with approximately 40 per cent of these taken out of competition. The ISC have promised to publicise the list of positive results they received and the sports to which the athletes belong. Names will not be included.

"The anti-doping report will be detailed sport by sport and the number of positives per sport. We would hope that we'd issue that report in the first three months of this year," said ISC chief executive John Treacy.