Rowing Ireland are the big winners as Sport Ireland announced a multi-year funding package toward the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Rowing Ireland will receive financial aid totalling €3.9m in a four-year cycle, which began in 2021. Sport Ireland have allocated €14.2m across all sports for the period. Rowing Ireland surpasses Athletics Ireland as the main beneficiary. Athletics Ireland will receive €3.36m, while Hockey Ireland will receive €3.3m.
The Irish Athletic Boxing Association's coffers were boosted by an injection of €770,000 from Sport Ireland in 2021.
However funding for 2022-2024 has yet to be confirmed and will only be decided on at the conclusion of an ongoing review and compliance with Sport Ireland's governance code.
“The move to multi-annual funding will ensure High Performance Programmes can plan throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Cycle with a degree of stability and certainty” said Sport Ireland high performance director Paul McDermott.
“Sport Ireland plans to invest over €40m in total in High Performance Programme Funding throughout the Paris Cycle (2021-2024). This is an increase from €31m in the Tokyo Cycle (2017-2020).”
“Through the International Carding Scheme, €3,080,500 will be invested in 2022, which will support 112 athletes and 10 relays or squads across 16 sports. This is an increase of €332,500 from 20212.
“Sport Ireland announced last year that the award levels for the International Carding Scheme in 2022 have increased” added McDermott.
“International Level has increased from €12,000 to €18,000; and World Class Level has increased from €20,000 to €25,000. The new supports for athlete transition into retirement have been warmly welcomed by athlete community. The investment by Sport Ireland to high performance sport in 2022 is substantial, and is a demonstration that the commitments to high performance sport identified in the National Sports Policy 2018-2027 are being delivered.”
