Today the Irish Sports Council announced how it plans to invest up to €25 million in Irish sport for 2014.

Just over €11 million of that money has been ring-fenced for the funding of the 59 National Governing Bodies of Sport, including the newly-formed Confederation of Golf in Ireland, which brings the three golfing organisations on the island together in a bid to streamline the development of the game here.

A total of €8.7 million will be invested directly into High Performance funding for sports bodies and athletes, with just €1.6 million of that money going directly to 85 athletes who are under the International Carding Scheme.

The Irish Amateur Boxing Association's core funding dropped slightly to €366,000 but their High Performance unit was once again given the largest share of that tranche of funding, while athletics remains unchanged on €800,000.

But is this spending policy the best model for delivering sporting success for Ireland?

We were joined by Sunday Independent sports editor John Greene and he thinks things are progressing well.

"They're certainly going in the right direction. Over the last couple of years, there has been a change in how they're doing it. Not everyone is happy with it and there are still problems and tensions there between athletes and administrators," said Greene.

This philosophy seems to be to spend money on sports that we are successful at like boxing. Yet athletics receives its fair share of revenue.

"Certainly it has been an issue around some of the money that has been spent on athletics," said Greene. "We're funny. We think ourselves as an athletic nation and good at athletics. We've had very little success at it but that doesn't seemed to have dimmed our opinion of ourselves. It is still a major participation sport. Athletics Ireland has had its trouble in the past. It's going in the right direction now and there's a lot of people running now. They're hoping that with increased participation, future World and European champions will come."

But Greene also pointed out a few glaring issues. Firstly, Ireland's high performance budget is equivalent to the UK's spending on cycling alone, while Ireland is also "hamstrung" by the fact that preparations for Rio 2016 only began in late 2013 which puts us a year behind the UK. 

 

Pictured (L-R) Billy Walsh, head coach of the IABA's High Performance, John Treacy, CEO Irish Sports Council and Liam Sheedy, Performance Committee at Irish Sports council ©INPHO/James Crombie