Ireland’s Paralympics athletes, swimmers and cyclists are once again the big winners in the latest allocation of the Irish Sports Council’s International Carding Scheme - with 11 of them each awarded €40,000.

This is part of the total allocation of €1,571,000 in direct athlete funding for 2015 - slightly down on last year’s amount (€1,576,000), while 14 sports will benefit directly this year, compared to 15 in 2014.

While a total of 11 Paralympics athletes, swimmers and cyclists will each receive the maximum “podium” amount of €40,000, a further nine athletes in Olympic sports will also receive that amount.

Boxing and athletics are once again the big winners there - with four boxers getting the €40,000: Katie Taylor, Joe Ward, Michael Conlon and Paddy Barnes. The total allocation to Irish boxers is €204,000.

Irish athletes will get €188,000 in direct funding, although Rob Heffernan is the only one to get the podium amount of €40,000. Mark English, who earlier this month won European Indoor silver over 800m, to add to his outdoor bronze last summer, only gets the world class amount of €20,000.

Also getting the maximum amount of €40,000 is sailor Annalise Murphy, triathlete Aileen Reid and cyclist Martin Irvine, and also clay pigeon shooter Derek Burnett. The number of individual athlete grants is down on last year - 75 in 2015, compared to the 85 that benefitted directly in 2014.

Last year also saw Athletics Ireland, Swim Ireland and the Irish Sailing Association took over the management of the scheme for their athletes. Following that successful transition, four more NGBs will take ownership in 2015: Badminton Ireland, Triathlon Ireland, Rowing Ireland and Cycling Ireland will all take over the management of the scheme.

"The Irish Sports Council is pleased with the successful transfer of the carding ccheme for Athletics, Sailing and Swimming as it has strengthened the high performance system in those sports," says John Treacy, Chief Executive of the Irish Sports Council.

“It has opened the way for the next phase of transition. We must continue to develop our High Performance system so that we can be competitive in international sport and the refinement of the Carding Scheme is an essential element of that process.”

The carding scheme is just one element of the investment strategy of the Irish Sports Council for 2015: €8.16 million has already been announced to fund 21 sports organisations to support high performance programmes which includes the Olympic Council of Ireland and Paralympics Ireland. In addition €1.5 million is invested in services provided directly by the Institute of Sport to those sports and athletes.

PODIUM ATHLETES 2015 - €40,000 each -

Robert Heffernan Athletics

Katie Taylor Boxing

Joe Ward Boxing

Michael Conlan Boxing

Paddy Barnes Boxing

Derek Burnett Shooting *

Colin Lynch Cycling (Paralympics)

Martyn Irvine Cycling

Mark Rohan Cycling (Paralympics)

Katie George Dunlevy Cycling (Para) *

Eoghan Clifford Cycling (Para) *

Michael McKillop Paralympics Ireland (Athletics)

Jason Smyth Paralympics Ireland (Athletics)

Orla Barry Paralympics Ireland (Athletics)

Ellen Keane Paralympics Ireland (Swimming)

Darragh McDonald Paralympics Ireland (Swimming)

Laurence McGivern Paralympics Ireland (Swimming)

James Scully Paralympics Ireland (Swimming)

Annalise Murphy Sailing

Aileen Reid Triathlon

*These athletes agreed that apportion of their funding would be invested directly in their programme by their National Governing Body