Paralympics chief urges talks on funding and priorities as Ireland return from Paris Games
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The Games are over. The medal count cannot climb any higher. And so the conversation switches to funding. Or rather, returns to funding.
Twenty-two of the Irish team on their way home from Paris this afternoon are in receipt of Sport Ireland funding under the international carding scheme. What that means is 13 of the Irish team that competed in Paris are not.
That leading Para athletes had to prepare for Paris on their own dime means the funding conversation is both urgent and necessary.
During an end-of-Games chat in the French capital, Paralympics Ireland CEO Stephen McNamara repeatedly referenced the Australian target of an even split in funding between disability sport and non-disabled sport. The Aussies are currently at 30% of overall funding for disability sport.
In Ireland, where they are a long way off such figures, McNamara wants as a first step that disabled athletes and disability sports receive a fair and equitable slice when the pie is being carved up for the next four years. In essence, a bigger slice than the €8m invested in Paralympics Ireland for the Paris 2021-24 cycle.
“There has to be hard decisions in relation to where we are with sport. Ireland is about to have a mature conversation about what we really want when it comes to sports funding and what represents us the best. The drive that we, Paralympics Ireland, need to look at is how do we get more as there is always a need for more,” McNamara began.
“We have huge pride in all of our big three sports (GAA, football, and rugby), and they take up a lot of the funding. There needs to be an examination of how we get more options for kids to play different sports, how do we fund that to make that happen.
“In Australia, they’ve said 15% [for disability sport] is not good enough, 30% is where we are now, and we want to get to 50%. That is really brave. We will end up demanding that we get those types of stats now in the next couple of weeks and months. And we will make some enemies along the way, and that is fine.
“But what we want to make sure is we are not forgotten and they'll appear again in four years time. We need to make sure we are on the minds, in the debate, and at the table for all of these conversations. It is that area of equality that we are still striving for.”
McNamara wants equality and merited respect in other areas too. Katie-George Dunlevy, off the back of her latest Paralympic gold medal, will be nominated for a whole host of end-of-year sports awards. According to the CEO, she’ll struggle to win any.
If her nomination for the main sports awards is merely box ticking, what message does that send out as to where Para athletes rank in the wider sporting community?
“We have just had an athlete win her eighth medal, which is just phenomenal, and she'll go to ceremonies now and she'll go there knowing she is not going to win them because somebody else has always won after every Paralympic and Olympic cycle.
“Why is it that Jason Smyth went to all those RTÉ Sports awards and never came away with one until he retired? If that was a non-disabled athlete that ran that fast and won that number of medals, they would have won it multiple times.
“This year, we need to understand why is it going into those rooms and going into awards that they know they are just going to make up the numbers. There is a bit of box ticking there.
“[Able-bodied athletes] will go into those rooms knowing they will have a fair crack at this, whereas our athletes will go in there knowing, I'll get a nice dinner out of it, we'll get dressed up, we'll get a nice hotel for the night, we'll be on the TV again, which is really important, and then the able-bodied athlete will win.”
The pre-Games target of eight to 10 medals was missed. Ireland travel home with one gold, three silver, and two bronze in the luggage.
Beside the six medals are six fourth-place finishes. Ellen Keane, Roísín Ní Riain, twice, Eve McCrystal and Josephine Healion, Greta Streimikyte, and Britney Arendse all missed a medal by one place.
All women, both the medalists and those who nearly mounted the podium.
Come LA, the CEO sees as another target having a greater percentage of men on the team but also a greater number of high-dependency athletes.
“Where women’s sport was 10 years ago to where it is now, is night and day. That is why we are seeing women winning medals.
“We want to use that so that in 10 years' time we have the same exponential growth in opportunity from grassroots level all the way through to international success for people with a disability. It’s not rocket science.”
The Games are over, the work recommences.