2009 SPORTS GRANTS:IRELAND'S ELITE athletes have escaped the pain of the country's economic crisis and emerged relatively unscathed – at least for now.

Those in boxing, sailing, canoeing, badminton, tennis and some of the Paralympic sports are, in fact, better off than last year, although the total amount distributed among 263 athletes under the high-performance carding scheme was reduced marginally to €2.26 million.

There was a further €5.12 million distributed to the 16 National Governing Bodies which have high-performance programmes.

Athletics, however, continues to miss out due to the negotiations with the Irish Sports Council over the appointment of key administration positions.

But in announcing the grants in Dublin yesterday, the chairman of the Sports Council, Ossie Kilkenny, made a strong plea to the Government to maintain investment in sport even as the economic crisis worsens.

“In times like this the necessity to invest in sport will be challenged at every corner,” said Kilkenny, who described the Government’s apparent abandonment of the Abbotstown campus project as “bordering on a tragedy”.

Kilkenny was particularly upset that an indoor arena, one of the projects earmarked for Abbotstown, now looks as far away as ever: “There are 27 indoor arenas in Sweden, and we don’t have any. There is no logical explanation for that. These are the pieces of the framework that are still missing.”

Boxing, not surprisingly, was one of the sports rewarded most handsomely. And four Paralympic athletes are also contracted.

For the first time, however, athletics failed to get a single contracted grant: Derval O’Rourke, who got the maximum €40,000 for the past two years, drops to World Class – worth €20,000.

The likes of Paul Hession, Mary Cullen, David Gillick and walkers Olive Loughnane and Rob Heffernan all get the same.

Finbarr Kirwan, the high performance director of the Sports Council, said all the athletes received the level of grant recommended by Athletics Ireland.

“That’s what the sport put forward,” he said. “We accept the level of difficulty in winning in athletics, but there is other root support for the likes of Paul and Olive. For coaching, sports science and that. So essentially they are getting more.”

The question of when Athletics Ireland would receive its high performance grant, worth €681,000 last year, was, according to Kilkenny, a matter of urgency.

“It’s not going to drag on and on. Because the one thing that has become apparent to us is that we can’t be seen not to be taking some role.

“So the next step is for us to get involved and help them through the current crises, because we want to fund.”

Contracted and World Class Athletes 2009

Boxing

Paddy Barnes (Contracted)€40,000

Ross Hickey (Contracted)€40,000

John Joe Joyce (Contracted)€40,000

Eamonn O'Kane (Contracted)€40,000

Kenny Egan (Contracted)€40,000

Katie Taylor (Contracted)€40,000

John Joe Nevin (Contracted)€30,000

David Oliver Joyce (World Class)€20,000

Ryan Lindberg (World Class)€20,000

Con Sheehan (World Class)€20,000

Darren O'Neill (World Class)€20,000

Roy Sheahan (World Class)€20,000

Canoeing

Eoin Rheinisch (Contracted)€40,000

Paralympic Athletics

Michael McKillop (Contracted)€40,000

Jason Smyth (Contracted)€40,000

Gabriel Shelly (Contracted)€36,600

Darragh McDonald (Contracted)€26,270

Orla Barry (World Class)€20,000

Garrett Culliton (World Class)€20,000

Pádraic Moran (World Class)€20,000

Athletics

Eileen O'Keeffe (World Class)€20,000

Olive Loughnane (World Class)€20,000

Róisín McGettigan (World Class)€20,000

Robert Heffernan (World Class)€20,000

Alistair Cragg (World Class)€20,000

Fionnuala Britton (World Class)€20,000

Paul Hession (World Class)€20,000

David Gillick (World Class)€20,000

Derval O'Rourke (World Class)€20,000

Mary Cullen (World Class)€20,000

Cycling

David O'Loughlin (World Class)€20,000

Cathal Miller (World Class)€20,000

Catherine Walsh (World Class)€20,000

Joanna Hickey (World Class)€20,000

Clay pigeon shooting

Philip Murphy (World Class)€20,000

Derek Burnett (World Class)€20,000

Sailing

Anthony Shanks (World Class)€20,000

Max Treacy (World Class)€20,000