THE most welcome aspect of the long awaited report Targeting Sporting Change in Ireland is that it represents the first attempt by somebody in this country to develop an integrated sports policy.

It is possible to pick holes in the document, indeed not much picking is needed in some areas, and possible also to doubt that much of it will ever be fully implemented but as aspirations go Targeting Sporting Change in Ireland is a worthy starting point.

The long-term challenge now is to make sure that the report is implemented and that its aims are organic and grow to meet the ever changing needs of sport in this country.

The short term challenge is to make sure that the spirit of the thing survives the forthcoming general election.

Much of the response to the document this weekend will spin from the removal from the Olympic Council of Ireland of their funds disbursement function. In an ideal world it would be desirable not to insert another layer of bureaucracy between sport and government but the world of sport in Ireland is far from ideal.

One thing is certain, when limited funds are being spread around such a wide number of sports there will always be unhappiness and bitterness over who gets what. The new committee-based structure for funding will need first to be flexible and secondly to be better armed with funds. The facts of life for high performance athletes are that funding requirements can occur as suddenly as pulled hamstrings. To ask athletes to fill out a series of forms in triplicate and then wait until the High Performance Advisory Committee meets will not be a step forward. The current system of grants provision has one overriding factor in its favour, it gets what money is available out quickly to those who need it.

It may indeed be the case that after the Sonia O'Sullivan row in Atlanta the public will have very little sympathy for Pat Hickey and the OCI. That is not the point, however. Athletes, the ones who matter in this instance, need more money, more facilities and more flexibility. If the government is unhappy with how the OCI has distributed funds, if there are discrepancies it has a duty to tell us.

In respect of financing itself the vaguely expressed aspiration that National Lottery funding for sport might reach the 25 per cent level is hopelessly watery and has the feel of political window dressing. Twenty-five per cent of available funds in 2001 would represent just £20.94 million according to the report. If this government (or the next one) is serious about sports policy sports funding will account for 50 per cent of lottery funds as originally intended.

It is worth noting that the British National Lottery has provided some £288 million for sport by September of 1996. While the Irish Government continues to pillage Lottery funding for day-to-day revenue needs in areas like health and education, the gulf between Ireland and other sporting nations will continue to grow. Britain's funding is spread over a far broader population base but the available evidence suggests that our nearest neighbours are far advanced in terms of major capital investment in sports facilities and sport infrastructure.

For Ireland the sort of investment required in new stadiums and new training centres can no longer be postponed. Furthermore there is little evidence as yet of a coordinated health/leisure strategy to make a range of sports available to the community in general. In respect of both elite facilities and community developments the report is long on what should be done and what bodies might be established but short on what precisely will be done. For instance on the issue of sports stadiums the report states that "in the event of an appropriate proposal emerging, The Government should support and actively promote such a venture." Well hold onto your hard hats. It doesn't come much less pro-active than that. Everyone would support and actively promote such a venture. What will the Government do about funding it?

In these depressing times for sports funding one hopes that the government does not get wind of the Russian solution whereby sport was granted an amnesty from all import/export duties on goods in 1993 and the national sports fund immediately became the nation's largest importer of liquor and cigarettes and the largest exporter of vodka.

Much is made in the report of the future of the National Coaching and Training Centre in Limerick. Undoubtedly the NCTC marks the way forward for Irish sport at an elite level. It is slightly perplexing, however, to see that the NCTC will be taking on an advisory role to the Irish Sports Council in matters relating to high performance.

If there is a problem with Irish sports administration (and there is) it is that sports people don't know their way around bureaucracy and bureaucrats don't know their way around sport. The development of the NCTC as a body autonomous from the Olympic Council of Ireland and it's constituencies merely adds another layer of bureaucracy to a complicated field.

The Olympic Games are the high point in the career of most athletes not competing in team sports. Like it or not all dealings with the Olympic movement go through the Irish Olympic Committee. Why the NCTC should be advising the Irish Sports Council on matter relating to high performance in order for the Irish Sports Council to pass this information onto the Irish Olympic Committee and from there on to individual sporting bodies makes little sense. The model for the NCTC should surely be the US Olympic training centre in Colorado Springs or the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra both of which co-ordinate their programmes with the requirements of Olympic sports bodies.

To have a fully equipped and fully staffed centre of excellence where coaches and athletes could attain the highest standard in their discipline in a worthy aim. The approach needs to be more fully co-ordinated.

Most critically at the end of the day, however, the question of funding remains central to all discussions of Irish sport. Athletes complain not of who distributes the funds or how they are distributed but about just how little gets distributed.

The establishment of a sports council will take up over £1.5 million of public funds. To overcome the obstacle of Government indifference to the ongoing lottery scandal will be the council's greatest challenge. In that respect aspiring to just 25 per cent of lottery funds is a disappointing start. The government's failure to commit even that much before the launch of the report suggests more bad news to come.

The suggestion that the minister responsible for sport be elevated to a full cabinet position is welcome if not new. The higher profile, increased influence and greater accountability would he a good start. As yet, however, there is no indication in this lavish report that the government as a whole views sport as a serious area of public policy.

The manner in which the Cabinet has reacted to the launch of the report - the rumours of rapped knuckles and bruised egos - together with the vague aspirational tone of the report itself suggests that in five years time Targeting Sporting Change in Ireland might just be another sports volume gathering dust in public libraries. The will to make sport work simply isn't there. In an election year sport is an area where it is worthwhile to make a lot of noise. Immediately afterwards it is a soft area for cutbacks.

In John Treacy the sports council has found an earnest and committed chairman. Treacy, the runner, had the resolve to track through miles and miles of mud in pursuit of a result. Whether he has the stamina to wade through the mire of hypocrisy, opportunism and red tape which is the traditional Government approach to sport remains to be seen.