The sporting budget: nothing succeeds like success

Most people working in sport will tell you there is no such thing as a good time to look for more Government funding, only the next time. No matter how much comes and goes in times of either boom or bust it always feels like too little or simply not enough.

Before any figures are announced in Budget 2019 one thing is certain: this year is already going down as arguably the most successful in Irish sporting history, based not just on the standout achievements but the sheer range of them.

With 58 medals so far won on the European and world stage, not forgetting shiny team feats such as a Grand Slam and European Cup for Irish rugby and an Irish women’s hockey team making the final of the World Cup, things are positively booming.

Not necessarily on the back of that there is the already clear Government promise and/or commitment on funding. It’s just over two months since the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross presented the new National Sports Policy 2018-2027, the headline of which was the promise to double investment in sport from the current annual figure of €111 million to €220 million, beginning, naturally, with Budget 2019.

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The main aim here is to increase overall participation in sport and physical from 43 per cent to 50 per cent of the population by 2027 (an extra 250,000 people).

There would, said Ross, also be a trebling of annual high performance investment support over the next decade, from the current figure of around €10 million to €30 million, plus a commitment to run the Sports Capital Programme on an annual basis, some €40 million already set aside for the 2018 allocations (the closing date for registration by the way being last Friday).

On the basic projection of a 10 per cent annual increase, towards 2027, that would mean an extra €11.1 million for 2019, for an overall figure of around €122 million.

That might sound like a lot of money until set against the €15.3 billion the Government spends on health (plus the estimated €750 million to €1.1 billion overrun), more than a quarter of total gross spending of some €58 billion, another quarter of which goes on social protection.

Sport may never be a matter of life and death and for that reason will never get the same levels of funding as the things that are. Which also means ensuring whatever funding sport does get is spent is wisely as possible, and that’s where the Federation of Irish Sport comes in.

Pre-budget submission

Set up in 2002 for the purpose of representing the 74 National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and the 26 Local Sports Partnerships (LSP’s), including over 12,000 sports clubs nationwide, the Federation of Irish Sport made a pre-budget submission to the Government outlining five clear and concise requests when it comes to their commitment to sport – and it’s not all about the money.

It does start with the promise of the “significant increase” in current funding for NGBs and LSPs included in the National Sports Policy 2018-2027 – and that “there needs to be a commensurate investment in people and programmes”’

With that the federation also calls on the implementation of multi-annual funding programmes for performance and participation, again as outlined in the policy document, and also a greater role for central sporting bodies in the allocation of sports capital funding.

It’s also looking for an advance in the introduction of tax incentives relating to sport to attract non-exchequer investment: “We believe that a tax incentive, proven to be effective internationally, will work in Ireland,” it says. And it says there needs to be the provision of direct funding to cover increased costs of governance and compliance.

Part of the problem is that the greater the success for Irish sport, the more fingers come looking for a slice of the pie. That extra slice Ross suddenly found in August in the form of an additional €1.5 million in Government funding (thanks to a €12 million dividend from the Irish Aviation Authority) was quickly eaten up by hockey’s extra €500,000 (for a total €1.375 million, the best it has ever been for the sport), the rest split among another 16 sporting organizations, including an extra €175,000 for the reformed Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI).

There was also the promise of another €1.5m allocation to support Tokyo 2020 (with the aim of increasing our 2016 Olympic/Paralympic medal tally of 13 to 20), plus an immediate acceleration of the Women in Sport Programme, doubling the annual funding provision to €2 million.

Core funding for Irish sport for 2018 was effectively the same as 2017, and still nothing succeeded like success. Only now the substantial increase in funding promised by the Government should reflect that.