How does the work of Sport Ireland’s high performance unit contribute to the overall success of Team Ireland?
First of all we fund the high performance programmes of each individual sport, as well as supporting the Olympic Federation and Paralympics Ireland. We fund the individual athletes under the international carding scheme. We work with the national governing bodies on a suite of supportive programmes including on coaching, governance, and planning. We collaborate with the Sport Ireland Institute to provide the range of required services. All of this allows for the sports to operate strong programmes so that their athletes and their coaches can compete internationally, go to European and world championships and in this particular year to go to an Olympic Games and Paralympic Games to represent Ireland.
How did you first become involved in high-performance sports, and what inspired you to pursue this career?
I joined the Irish Sports Council in 1999 because I wanted to work in sport and its development as it’s such an important part of our social and cultural life. In the very early days, I went to the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games and I was doing the comms for that team and really enjoyed it. It was a small agency then and I worked very closely with the high performance unit so I was involved right from the inception really. I then stayed involved and became the director of the high performance unit in 2013.
How do you intend to build upon the successes and learn from the challenges of this Olympic cycle for future competitions?
We have a high performance strategy, and we have regular reviews. There are also quadrennial reviews arising out of every four year Olympic and Paralympic cycle. And we’ve already completed a systems review for the four years up to 2024. We’ve always had an independent component to that as well as a deep engagement with the whole community. This produces a series of recommendations, and we implement those. That’s how we’ve built the high performance sector since 2001 and that’s how we continue to do it. It starts with that review process, and then the recommendations arising and implementing those recommendations is how you build on success.
What steps are you taking to ensure the financial sustainability of the high-performance programme?
So we fund the high performance programme and there is a commitment there from Government, through the national sports policy, which is great for us and they are honouring that commitment. But out of that, we’ve also recognised that you need other streams of income. It allows for better decisions and more independence for each individual component part and each individual governing body or organisation. So they’re expected then to develop business plans and bring in other streams of income to allow them to sustain their individual programmes. Certainly, from our point of view, it is a barrier to success if a programme can’t provide some of its own resources.
How do you collaborate with national governing bodies and the Olympic Federation of Ireland to optimise athlete performance?
We talk a lot! We work closely with our colleagues at the Sport Ireland Institute. We meet regularly with the Olympic Federation and all the governing bodies. So there are multiannual plans which we support. It’s a lot of shared work, project work, meetings, talking, exchanging. It’s a very shared, collaborative process. There was a realisation in Ireland a long time ago that people have different roles and responsibilities, different mandates, and different resources, and we’re a small country. We’re trying to take on global superstars in sport. So, working apart with different agendas wasn’t going to work. So we made a commitment to work together, and that’s how we do it, which involves investing a lot of energy and time in collaboration. Building partnerships is easy to say and harder to do but we genuinely have a well aligned system now.
What are the long-term goals for the high-performance programme beyond the Olympics?
Beyond the Olympics, we have our high performance strategy which runs up to 2032. We love the Olympics, and we love the Paralympics, but we’re not focused on just that. We understand that that can be an up and down experience and that there are other opportunities to excel. What we’re trying to do is have a high performance system to honour the potential of all our athletes and indeed, our coaches, so that we can say, ‘at this particular moment, it’s high performing, high functioning and delivering against its mandate to honour the potential of athletes’. At a particular moment that can be a hundred medals a year. At another moment, that potential might only be 40 or 50 medals. But the point is that anybody who’s got talent, anyone who’s got the right physical and natural gift of a sports person, we can work with them in our system and help them reach their full potential.
Paul McDermott is the Director of High Performance at Sport Ireland. Sport Ireland Institute is the official performance support delivery partner to the Olympic Federation of Ireland