SUCH is the pitch of Olympic fever in Leinster House that the Taoiseach has taken to wearing a special tie, direct from Atlanta, bearing the inter locking five rings.
Not for the first time in Ireland, sport is good news, but will it translate into practical political support? When the Minister of State responsible for Sport, Mr Bernard Allen, came on TV one night as Michelle Smith was squirrelling away her opulence of gold medals, the whisper got out that he was about to announce plans for a 50 metre swimming Pool.
It didn't happen, but the Minister said he would seriously consider the issue. Sports commentators Gary O'Toole and Mick Dowling remarked that the provision of such a pool would be the best possible way the Government could honour her.
For the thousands of people who spend their time and money voluntarily working for games and physical recreations, there is now a triteness about politicians banging on about the value of sport while offering such limited financial support.
People like Mick Dowling of the Irish Amateur Boxing Association can recall returning from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico to hear mellow platitudes about his admirable contribution to the world of sport. Four years later he returned from the Munich Olympics to the same chorus.
I heard the same promises. I have no doubt but we will be hearing the same thing after Sydney in four years' time. The best way the Government can honour our athletes is to cop on and take sport seriously," Dowling says.
There are parallels between successive governments' approach to sport and their approach to crime, he adds. From the school that believes more sport would lead to less crime, he said that, in both fields, administrations have spread inadequate investment sporadically rather than implement a radical development strategy involving major expenditure.
"Sure, governments can say we are giving three times more to sport today than we gave in 1985. But that wouldn't be hard. We need huge, wholesale investment in sport but we will not hold our breaths. The Government must divert National Lottery money to sport, which now gets a small, harmless percentage," he says.
According to figures from the Department of Education, which oversees the allocation of money to sport, a total of £96,721,711 was spent between 1986 and 1995. It is not nearly adequate, as far as struggling sports organisations are concerned, but many are reluctant to express their frustration for fear of annoying the paymasters.
Mr Jim Tunney, Minister of State for Sport from 1977 to 1981, remembers that the Exchequer funding devoted to sport when he took over the portfolio was buttons". It came to less than £500,000 that year. Three years later, the importance of sport was dawning slowly on the government and his annual budget rose to £2.2 million.
HE claims even this growth would not have happened but for pressure from himself and Taoisigh with a sporting back ground Jack Lynch and Charles Haughey. "Everybody would admit to having an interesting sport and being sympathetically disposed towards it. But there was an attitude that sport was something that could be attended to when everything else had been provided for," he says.
Deep down there was an awareness in government that people existed who were "so patriotic, so fanatical in their commitment to sport that they were happy to do it without recompense.
That was the feeling in government, though not confined to government. Since people were willing to do it for nothing, why should we pay for it? Money was always scarce for sport the attitude in Finance was that if there was money left in the kitty, it could go to sport.
Tunney set up Cospoir, the national sports council, and selected 15 people to assist in the development of a sports and recreation policy. The Minister told an early meeting of the new body that it was "like a new baby, born without teeth" but it would, develop the ability to bite. In spite of his "vision", the council, never became a statutory body never grew the gnashers, molars or fangs necessary to implement its brief and, unfortunately, became a political football of sorts.
Mick Dowling says the council "without question, was used politically", tending to have a similar lifespan and the government of the day. He was a member of the Tunney appointed council but along with persons of impeccable sporting pedigree the runner Noel Carroll, Denis Coughlan, a" Cork hurler and footballer, and Noel Murphy, the Irish rugby international was dropped by the new Minister, Mr Michael Keating, in a new administration. Continuity was lost.
Ironically, though tragically neglected by successive governments sport has been a spawning ground for many politicians.
The Ministry of Sport itself is seen as a "nice old number" in political circles, but not a formidable portfolio. The Minister is of junior rank and has no muscle at the Cabinet table.
MR JIM Mitchell, while chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, investigated how a government Minister made out, on a piece of blank paper, an application for lottery funding for an organisation in his Dublin constituency a cheque was forthcoming within days. Guidelines to end this type of practice were drafted by him and accepted by the Department of Finance.
"Forget about the Lotto." Mitchell said yesterday, "The State, from its extensive resources, should provide a sporting infrastructure. It is a damn disgrace that we have not addressed the matter before now. We need a national sports development plan with the State and private sector co-operating to implement it."
Well, a national plan is in the pipeline for later this year. A special committee, appointed by Mr Bernard Allen and headed by Mr John Treacy, is consulting widely and a comprehensive work is anticipated.
