{"id":268952,"date":"2026-01-28T20:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/268952\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T20:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:42:07","slug":"sport-ireland-criticised-for-slow-intervention-in-conflict-between-athletes-and-rowing-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/268952\/","title":{"rendered":"Sport Ireland criticised for slow intervention in conflict between athletes and Rowing Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rowing Ireland<\/a> had its Sport Ireland<\/a> funding withheld on the eve of the Paris Olympics<\/a> after failing to adequately address serious concerns around athlete safeguarding and welfare.<\/p>\n

The revelation emerged during a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport, convened following testimonies from rowers about their experiences within the high-performance environment between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n

However, committee chair Alan Kelly described Sport Ireland\u2019s handling of the situation as \u201cdeeply concerning\u201d, arguing that the State body should have intervened earlier to resolve escalating conflict between athletes and their governing organisation.<\/p>\n

Former international rower Monika Dukarska, who has spoken publicly about her experiences, watched from the gallery as Mr Kelly said correspondence received by the committee from Rowing Ireland ahead of the meeting was \u201cextraordinary\u201d and \u201cunprecedented\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rowing Ireland chief executive Michelle Carpenter did not attend the session. Committee vice-chair Senator Evanne N\u00ed Chuilinn told members that Ms Carpenter had contacted her seeking \u201cconfidence and support\u201d on the eve of the hearing, which Ms N\u00ed Chuilinn described as inappropriate.<\/p>\n

Rowing Ireland board chair Barry McWilliams said Ms Carpenter was unwell and unable to attend. With high-performance lead coach Dominic Casey also unavailable, none of the organisation\u2019s representatives present had held senior operational roles during the period under scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Sport Ireland chief executive, Dr Una May, told the committee the organisation \u201cacknowledge and regret the experience shared by some athletes\u201d, conceding that \u201cfrankly, there were issues\u201d within Rowing Ireland\u2019s high-performance programme.<\/p>\n

Ms Dukarska and two-time world champion and Olympian Sanita Puspure had earlier met the committee in private, outlining the culture they said developed under former performance director Antonio Maurogiovanni, whose contract was not renewed following the Paris Games in 2024.<\/p>\n

Members had also been briefed by psychologist Dr Paul Gaffney, who had treated 12 current and former athletes from the setup. Dr May confirmed Dr Gaffney had raised concerns with Sport Ireland as far back as 2021, though she said no formal athlete complaint reached the body until 2023.<\/p>\n

Dr May outlined a series of interventions by Sport Ireland over that period, including mentoring, mediation and additional resource supports, culminating in the suspension of funding.<\/p>\n

Paul McDermott, Sport Ireland\u2019s director of high performance, confirmed funding was halted in July, 2024. He stressed that withdrawal of funding was not a tool the organisation \u201cwishes to weaponise\u201d, describing the Rowing Ireland situation as \u201cunusual and unique\u201d. He said Sport Ireland did not observe similar systemic issues across other sports.<\/p>\n

Rowing Ireland representatives maintained that the programme\u2019s culture had changed significantly since 2024. President Jane Williams said neither clubs nor athletes recognised the toxic environment described by critics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe culture is strong at the moment,\u201d said head of high performance Niall O\u2019Carroll. \u201cAthletes have a voice now and there has been radical change around selection processes and transparency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Chuilinn cautioned, however, that \u201ceverything is not perfect\u201d. Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney accused Rowing Ireland of displaying a \u201clack of humility\u201d and failing to meaningfully address the past after Mr McWilliams declined to apologise to affected athletes. <\/p>\n

Accepting responsibility, she said, was \u201cvital for healing and progress\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Chuilinn also criticised the broader system for failing to provide \u201csafe spaces\u201d through which athletes could raise concerns, particularly in high-performance environments where power imbalances can deter whistleblowing.<\/p>\n

Sport Ireland culture adviser John Donnelly supported the creation of an independent reporting structure, allowing athlete complaints to be investigated externally before findings were referred back to governing bodies.<\/p>\n

Mary O\u2019Connor, chief executive of the Federation of Irish Sport, said additional athlete support managers were needed across Ireland\u2019s 81 national governing bodies \u2013 there is currently just one, appointed in 2024 \u2013 alongside enhanced investigative powers to ensure accountability.<\/p>\n

Dr May, meanwhile, told the committee she had \u201cqualified confidence\u201d in Ms Carpenter\u2019s leadership. She said Sport Ireland had not sought expanded statutory powers, though it remained open to considering changes to its remit to include investigations.<\/p>\n

Wrapping up the hearing, Mr Kelly described the session as \u201cquite extraordinary \u2013 even before it began\u201d and warned Rowing Ireland representatives against selecting independent figures themselves for any future review process.<\/p>\n

He also expressed serious concerns about both the organisation\u2019s governance and Sport Ireland\u2019s oversight. \u201cI\u2019m not buying the idea that Sport Ireland couldn\u2019t intervene before 2024,\u201d Mr Kelly said. \u201cEnough red flags were raised and that\u2019s deeply concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Sport later issued a statement emphasising the \u201cshared responsibility\u201d of safeguarding athletes across all sports.<\/p>\n

Ministers Patrick O\u2019Donovan and Charlie McConalogue said the episode underlined the need to learn lessons from Rowing Ireland\u2019s handling of the situation and called for an independent review of the processes, procedures and timelines involved. They said such a review could strengthen Ireland\u2019s overall framework for sports governance and athlete protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rowing Ireland had its Sport Ireland funding withheld on the eve of the Paris Olympics after failing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43,63492,26917,132026,96346],"class_list":["post-268952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-paris-2024","tag-rowing","tag-rowing-ireland","tag-sport-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}