We are delighted to have this opportunity to make a submission to the committee. I am accompanied by Ms Sheelagh Quinn, director of corporate services at the NCTC.
I will give a brief overview of the NCTC and how it operates so members will understand the context in which we are operating. I will then make observations about the Athens quadrennial and focus on some key issues that need to be addressed going forward. We also have some support documentation in terms of proposals and so on which we will be happy to share with the committee.
I will follow broadly the structure of the submission that has been circulated. I will not refer to all of it, as members have this information in writing, but I will deal with the main points.
By way of background, the centre was established in 1992 by the then Minister of State, Deputy Aylward, and its headquarters is on the campus of the University of Limerick. Its terms of reference were first laid down in 1992, then added to by the then Minister of State, Deputy Allen, in 1997 and further refined following the establishment of the Irish Sports Council in 1999.
We are formally linked to the University of Limerick through a memorandum of agreement which operates within the context of the policies of the Irish Sports Council and the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. This memorandum is currently under review by the council and the University of Limerick. It is proposed that the NCTC will become established as a company limited by guarantee with a refined set of objectives and its own company structure.
We benefit greatly from the physical infrastructure on the campus of the University of Limerick and we have developed excellent relationships with the university and its constituent parts over the past ten years. If members visited the campus recently, they would have noted that a ten-year physical development plan has been completed, with the €30 million development of the University of Limerick Arena, including a 50-metre pool and multi-purpose sports building.
We developed the centre's mission following extensive research in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia. We pride ourselves on continuing to maintain those links and trying to underpin our work by close research and development into what is happening in sports worldwide.
There are two planks to the work we do. First, we have been asked to develop effective coaching and coach education systems across all of our sports and, second, we provide support for emerging and top athletes in designated sports. We have a two plank mission whereby, on one side, we deal with coaching and coach education and, on the other side, we deal with athletes and their development. It is essential that this work is carried out in close co-operation with national governing bodies because those are the bodies that deliver sport on the ground. Therefore, we have established partnerships with over 50 of these bodies. The work occurs in the context of the Irish Sports Council and the policies of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism.
For the purposes of our work, we have banded sports into three categories. This may be of relevance to the committee in identifying priorities going forward. We currently band our sports into Olympic-paralympic sports, pathway sports and coaching sports. Olympic-paralympic sports is a fairly obvious classification. It consists of Olympic Games sports such as athletics, boxing, cycling, canoeing, sailing and rowing and the paralympic disciplines. The pathway sports consist of our major team games, both male and female, and also sports such as basketball, hockey, tennis and so on.
I will outline the key areas of work in which we are involved. We have established the national coaching development programme. We work in player-athlete services providing services under the Irish Sports Council's international carding scheme and, through corporate services, we provide training camps in an holistic training environment on the campus of the University of Limerick. Ms Sheelagh Quinn's section, corporate services, is also responsible for revenue generation, and in the past five years it has generated €1.8 million over and above State allocations to the centre.
As regards our structure, we are overseen by a board of management, normally consisting of 12 members, but currently we have an interim board of three members. We have 15 full-time staff. Our primary funding source is the Irish Sports Council. Our core grant in 2004 was €894,000. Revenue is generated and contributes a high percentage of our total budget; between 25% and 30% of the total budget of the centre is generated through commercial activities.
We try to develop close partnerships with our clients. We hold regular seminars of a technical nature with the national governing bodies. We have established a sports science and medical support network throughout the country. We have a sports medical panel and we recently established a technical advisory group which produced the document, Building Pathways in Irish Sport, to which I will refer later. We have established a targeted database of 25,000 key personnel within sport. They are mainly coaches and athletes. These would be people involved in coaching or certified as coaches, or who have availed of the services of the centre as athletes.
I will briefly outline what we consider to be the main achievements of the centre. The first is the establishment of the national coaching development programme. If one viewed the coaching landscape in Ireland ten years ago, one would have observed that every national governing body was operating to a different coaching agenda. There was no coaching structure or certification system for coaches. All our major sporting bodies are involved in a five level coach education and certification structure. This structure has been lined up with the emerging coaching qualification structure in the European Union. We are currently developing 36 coaching systems with different sports throughout the country.
The NCDP implementation manual can be passed around to members. It is a detailed manual which, effectively, is a step by step guide for national governing bodies on how to develop their own coaching systems from top to bottom. Our technical staff provide advice on how they can go about doing that. There are 25,000 certified coaches working at all levels, many of them in disadvantaged areas. Some 550 tutors have been trained. A tutor is a coach educator. These would be leading people in sports who are responsible for educating coaches within those sports.
This year we have assimilated 906 experienced coaches into the national coaching development programme. These coaches were in the system long before the NCTC was established. Rather than having them go through the education process from the bottom up, we provided them with the opportunity to assimilate, and this has been a successful scheme. People like Packie Bonner, Gerry Mullins and Eddie Macken are high profile coaches who have come in under that scheme.
We also have an active programme of harmonising coaching qualifications with Northern Ireland. We established a nationwide network of 350 sports science and medical service providers. These are doctors, physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists, biomechanists and physiologists who operate in all parts of the island and who provide services for our athletes, particularly through the carding scheme. In 2003, we provided 2,000 service provisions in sports science and medicine as part of the Irish Sports Council's international scheme.
We have established a medical screening programme, including hospital screening for athletes on the international carding scheme. This is a topical issue in light of the incidence of sudden death syndrome. All athletes on that scheme undergo a detailed medical screening. That programme has already picked up five athletes who needed further referral or intervention in regard toheart defects. Therefore, it is an important development.
There has been much comment on Ireland's performance in international sport, but over the years we have been privileged to support more than 50 medal winning performances at European or world level. Some of them are listed in the submission, but that is only a partial list. We have been closely involved with those performances. GAA squads, rugby development squads and national and international squads are increasingly using the facilities of the NCTC and the University of Limerick. As the NCTC is located on the campus of the University of Limerick, I, as its director, and the vice-president of the university, John O'Connor, were asked to jointly chair the physical development plan for the development of the physical infrastructure of the university. Therefore, the centre was directly involved in the conceptualisation and driving forward of that physical development plan.
There are also other initiatives in which the centre is involved. On an ongoing basis we provide technical support for the work of the Irish Sports Council. We meet the council on a quarterly basis and, as required, in the intervening period. We have developed a consultation paper, Building Pathways in Irish Sport, which I will not circulate at this point as I will deal with it later. In the 1990s, we were also strongly involved in drawing up the code of ethics and good practice for children's sport in Ireland, and I acted as the rapporteur to that group. We also contributed to the development of the document, Targeting Sporting Change, and simultaneously to the development of a sports strategy for Northern Ireland which was published around the same time.
I am the chairman of the European Coaching Council which is affiliated to the European Network of Sports Science in Education. That has developed a set of EU guidelines on the mutual recognition of coaching qualifications throughout Europe. Recently we negotiated with Lucozade Sport a continuous professional development programme and a sport education programme which adds a significant amount of revenue to the activities of the centre and also enables us to engage in many activities in which otherwise we would not be able to engage.
Before dealing with the current issues, I wish to make a few points about the Athens quadrennial, which is No. 7 in the submission. It is our view that the results achieved were somewhat less than might have been expected. However, we believe that some of the expectations in terms of Irish performances at Olympic Games are quite unrealistic. We need to be clear on what we can achieve in terms of medal winning performances and performances in finals and semi-finals.
I would like to give members an indication of the type of work the NCTC contributed to the quadrennial and we will be happy to answer any questions from members. Our main function in the quadrennial was to co-ordinate the sports science and medical support programmes for the Athens enhancement sports under the Irish Sports Council's programme. The sports in question were athletics, boxing, canoeing, cycling, rowing and sailing as well as equestrian and paralympic sports. We also co-ordinated the development of specific preparation guidelines for the Athens Games. We produced an extensive document on heat pollution, hydration and so on. The majority of athletes also came to the NCTC to undertake workshops on how to deal with the heat. We provided them with guidance and planning guidelines on how to deal with it.
During the four years in question 6,500 service provisions were delivered to carded athletes by the NCTC directly or through the network in place throughout the country. They were also delivered to some of our athletes based abroad. We organised several training camps in Limerick for Athens enhancement sports and the paralympic squads. Our staff travelled to Sweden, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Holland, Germany and the United Kingdom to provide sports, science and medical support for the athletes going to Athens. We also provided ongoing education and support for the high level coaches involved in the preparation for the Athens Games. I have mentioned the assimilation scheme for which many of the coaches involved applied.
During the quadrennial — I remark on this because of some of the difficulties experienced in previous quadrennials — the working relationship between the centre and the Olympic Council of Ireland was excellent in relation to sports, science and medical support issues. Our head of player-athlete services, Dr. Giles Warrington, was a full member of the medical support team throughout the preparatory period. We had some reservations in the setting of targets for the quadrennial. We believe clear targets were not set and agreed across all the agencies in four key areas. What was our overall goal, purpose, mission and expectation in terms of performance? Much has been said about the preparedness of the team. We did not define clearly enough what we meant by high levels of preparation. What were the criteria for a well prepared team? What were our targets for team work between the main agencies involved — the Irish Sports Council, the Olympic Council of Ireland, the Paralympic Council, the NCTC and the national governing bodies? It is easy to talk about co-operation but it is essential to put in place tangible measures which will show there is co-operation. We need to see the results of such co-operation.
The fourth issue is that of legacy building. One of the great dangers in dealing with quadrennials is that if there is a poor result, everybody will say we are preparing for the next one. These are the third Olympic Games in which I have been director of the NCTC and heard that said. If we are talking about legacy building, we need to be clear on how we will build and measure that legacy. We need to be much clearer in what we say on the issue.
On the issue of the establishment of targets against which we can evaluate progress, we probably could have done more. The most important resource at our disposal is the staff. Ours is a small centre. There are 15 well qualified and highly motivated staff who worked morning, noon and night before and during the last four years in support of our efforts. Sadly, we entered the quadrennial with longer term issues in a vacuum such as terms and conditions and leave it in exactly the same way. That is very disappointing, given that following the review of the Sydney Games there were clear recommendations about the need for the National Coaching and Training Centre to be put on a firmer footing and for its resources to be matched to its remit.
I shall give the joint committee a tangible example of what this means. If I wanted to interview a person tomorrow morning for one of the main technical positions in the NCTC, it is most likely that I would have to go outside the country to find somebody with suitable experience. If I could find somebody inside the country, it would take two to three years for him or her to be fully trained in the work, even if he or she came to the centre well qualified. For us to lose a member of staff in the technical area would be a disaster. Our key staff members have received offers from as far away as Australia. One was in such demand she was on the point of going to work in the Australian system, not because she wanted to go but simply because we were not in a position to value the work she was doing. That is a key issue in coming out of the cycle.
Much has been said about the level of co-operation between the agencies involved as well as the level of preparedness. We agree in large measure. We need to recognise that it was much too late putting together an Athens enhancement programme and seeking co-operation 18 to 24 months before the games. We should be out of the blocks and not operating on four year cycles but eight and 12 year cycles. It took us time to assimilate, digest and start taking action on the findings of the Sydney Games review. It is crucial that there is a prompt Athens Games review which is action focused. I will be happy to comment on the Athens Games review.
I shall conclude by referring to some current issues. I have mentioned the terms and conditions, including pensions, of staff. The issues of company formation and future functions of the centre are still in abeyance four years after the Sydney Games review recommended that they be addressed. I hold my hand up as director of the centre. While it is my responsibility, I have to report that in Olympic year 2000 and pre-Olympic year 2003 the centre recorded budget deficits which put a significant strain on its operation. This means we have to generate money to clear the deficit. If so, our focus on our core business will be diverted. Because of budget constraints, regrettably we had to close our athletes village in 2004.
Recently we have had excellent discussions with Campus Stadium Ireland on the proposed developments at Abbotstown. Our view is that the headquarters of the NCTC should remain in Limerick but we would like to have a base at Abbotstown and ensure synergy in the work done in Dublin and Limerick as there is no room for duplication of facilities. This is a small country and we should be getting our act together and working together.
The main message we would like to get across is that we passionately believe there is a need for a policy commitment at the highest possible level to a long-term approach to the development of our athletes. A document I will pass around, Building Pathways in Irish Sport, was developed after an extensive period of consultation involving all of the national governing bodies. The group included Brian Kerr, Billy Kennedy from the Olympic Council of Ireland; Liam Harbison, the Paralympic Council; Pat Daly, the GAA; Robin Gregg, a coach in Northern Ireland; Stephen Aboud, Irish Rugby Football Union; Jill Poots, Sports Council for Northern Ireland; Helen Raftery, Irish Sports Council, and Thor Nilsen who was our rowing coach at the games. This broadly representative group was advised by Dr. Istvan Balyi, a Hungarian-Canadian expert in long-term athlete development based in British Colombia.
A core message of the document is that it takes at least ten years and 10,000 hours of practice to create an Olympic champion. If that is the case, we must recognise in our planning that we will have to go through different phases in developing athletes. To put it crudely, if we were manufacturing televisions, we would know the constituent parts, how long it would take to make them and get them off the production line. That is a crude analogy but we need to understand that many of the kids standing around rather than running in primary school playgrounds are the ones likely to be the Olympic champions of the future.
The document advocates five main phases of development and puts strong emphasis on the learn to play in practice phases, namely, before the age of 12 years. Our adviser has made a very controversial statement which I have to say in my empirical experience as director of the NCTC, a parent, coach and PE teacher is absolutely correct. If we do not develop the fundamental motor skills of children by the age of 12 years, they will never reach their genetic potential. What is frightening is that if we do not engage them in sport and physical activity by the time they reach 12 years of age, they are likely not to become involved or will become part of that high risk category of potentially obese individuals who will later develop health problems.
Our basic argument is that we need a long-term approach. It is a win-win situation — that as well as investing in high performance, we will also invest in the health and well-being of the nation. When one considers the amount being spent on health budgets, the amount required to make a tangible difference based on this approach is a drop in the bucket.
To illustrate how we conduct our business, there is a summary of the feedback received from the various agencies. What members will see is that there has been a strong endorsement of the approach by many influential individuals but as Deputy Deenihan said at the federation meeting, it is just a document. We have heard much about legacies and documents. The issue now has to be how we move forward and plan actions.
