John Greene

Paul Gaffney is a really crucial figure in all this.

Paul is a clinical psychologist.

He worked with Sport Ireland.

And in 2021, bearing in mind Mario Giovanni works with Ireland until 2024, but in 2021,

Paul raised a red flag with Sport Ireland about what was going on in Irish rowing.

Now, he couldn't attend yesterday, but he sent the committee a letter.

And here's a quote from the letter.

And he writes, By early 2024, I was providing clinical psychology input to 12 rowers.

And in my clinical opinion, the vast majority of these athletes needed to see me as a consequence of how they were treated in the programme.

So that's the short version.

Let's get to Wednesday, yesterday, Leinster House, Committee Room 4.

What would Rowing Ireland have to say about these years, 2017 to 2024?

So right off the bat yesterday at Leinster House, we had a problem.

Here is the chair of Rowing Ireland, Barry McWilliams, and his opening remarks.

And the news for the committee was not good.

Questions we're less well able to answer.

So no, Dominic Cayce, we don't know exactly why he couldn't come, but he's a crucial witness, celebrated coach at the Coalface during this period.

And then the CEO, Michelle Carpenter.

The word subsequently was she'd fallen ill, which is very unfortunate, and we do take her at her word, of course.

But we live in a cynical world, and the optics here are very, very bad.