75 athletes in line to benefit from Sports Council funding allocations

The Irish Sports Council has committed over €1.5m in funding for the International Carding Scheme for 2015. The money will be invested in 75 athletes across 14 sports.

The package includes 20 athletes (9 Olympic and 11 Paralympic) on the top category of funding (Podium) of €40,000.

Athletics Ireland secured €906,000 in cash grants and support for a record number of high performance athletes in 2015.

The investment sees an overall increase in the number of athletes supported from 87 to 118 this year.

In the breakdown of the funds, there will be €188,000 of Irish Sports Council Direct Support for the top three tier, Podium, World Class and International, carded athletes. Robert Heffernan is the only athlete on the highest level (podium) of funding and will receive €40,000. Mark English is on world class funding alongside Fionnuala Britton, Ciarán Ó Lionáird, Paul Robinson and Thomas Barr and they will all be in receipt of €20,000. International tier funding is €12,000 with four athletes, Brian Gregan, Laura Reynolds, Brendan Boyce and Alex Wright making the grade.

There will be an additional €260,000 of Athletics Ireland High Performance Direct Support for all 118 carded athletes with cash grants derived from the Association and the High Performance budgets. Alongside that there is €458,000 allotted for investment in high performance support services, competition and training camps.