All national governing bodies (NGB’s) of Irish sport are in line to benefit from plans to introduce multi-annual funding, beginning next year, following agreement between the Government and the Irish Sports Council.

In what will be a significant revamp of the current funding structure, it will afford most sports a greater certainty of longer-term investment, typically for three-year periods, still in time for the Rio Olympics in 2016, and beyond that again to Tokyo 2020.

Minister for Sport, Leo Varadkar, has informed the Sports Council of his preference for such multi-annual funding when it comes to NGB’s, although Government funding for sport will continue to be allocated on an annual basis as part of the Budget process.

"Following discussions with the Federation of Irish Sport and various NGB's, I am of the view that introducing a system of multi-annual funding would be a positive step for the NGB's and for the sport sector in general," said Minister Varadkar.

More certainty
"This measure would benefit NGB's by facilitating the development of more strategic and longer term planning for their sports, and would provide them with more certainty around their funding than currently exists. It would also allow the Sports Council to make funding decisions on the basis of these longer term plans."

In addition, explained Varadkar, the multi-annual funding would work better in the proposed merger of the Sports Council and the National Sports Campus Development Authority into a new statutory sports body, Sport Ireland, “by providing for a more efficient use of resources compared to the amount of work and time involved in the annual process”.

Kieran Mulvey, chair of the Irish Sports Council, has warmly welcomed the planned change, describing it as “an extremely positive development”.

Last month, some 59 NGB’s of Irish sport had their funding for 2014 virtually unchanged from last year with an overall allocation of €25 million, but there was no guarantee this would extend beyond 2014. Of the €25m, €10.64m was divided between the 59 NGB’s for essential operational costs.

“This development will bring major operational benefits to the sports bodies,” added Mulvey, “and we consider it a strong signal from the Government of its commitment to sport, and to the NGB’s in particular.”

The Sports Council had suggested such a revised funding model by advocating “a system of multi-annual funding which would allow it and the NGB’s to plan and develop their expenditure programmes over a three-year period” and that a “certainty of investment in the medium term would aid good planning and budgetary discipline”.

The overall NGB allocation of €25m announced last month accounts for well over half of the Irish Sports Council overall budget of €42.5m, and despite initial fears that the last Budget would further erode the money available for spending, high performance and overall core funding was slightly up on 2013.

High performance funding for 18 sports – plus Paralympics and the Olympic Council of Ireland – was also slightly up on last year, €7.11m compared to €7.06m.