ROWING IRELAND CEO Michelle Carpenter’s non-appearance at an Oireachtas hearing into athlete welfare allegations was “disappointing” and “unprecedented”, committee chairperson Alan Kelly said on Wednesday.

Senior officials from Sport Ireland and Rowing Ireland appeared before a joint Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport to discuss athlete allegations of a toxic culture within Irish rowing’s high performance programme, first revealed by the Sunday Independent.

Carpenter and Dominic Casey, the high performance coach for Rowing Ireland’s lightweight teams, were both due to appear at Wednesday’s hearing.

However, Rowing Ireland chairperson Barry McWilliams told the hearing that Carpenter was unable to attend as she was “unwell”, and that Casey was “unavailable”.

- ‘Extraordinary’ -

In his opening remarks, Kelly said he had received a “huge amount of correspondence” ahead of the hearing and that the last few weeks have been “extraordinary” for the committee members.

He also revealed that the committee received an email from Rowing Ireland yesterday to make queries about the process of the hearing, which they responded to.

He also mentioned that the clerk of the committee received a phone call this morning which he declined to expand on. The Rowing Ireland CEO also sent an email this morning to Kelly and the vice-chair of the committee, Evanne Ní Chuilinn, which he also did not discuss.

Shortly before the meeting took place, solicitors representing Rowing Ireland sent an email saying that the CEO would not be in attendance, along with Dominic Casey. They were also informed that a solicitor for Rowing Ireland would be attending the meeting as a member of the audience.

“I’ve been around these houses quite a long time and I’ve never had so many issues come up before a meeting,” Kelly began. “As chair of this group, it’s been unprecedented for me, someone who has been here 19 or 20 years.”

In relation to the email explaining that the Rowing CEO would not be present at the hearing, Kelly said: “We emailed back saying this was disappointing, and in my view, unprecedented at the very last minute.”

- Phone call - 

Ní Chuilinn also spoke about the correspondence she received from Rowing Ireland.

“I did have text messages and a missed call from a number I didn’t recognise last night. It was the CEO of Rowing Ireland and she was seeking what I can only describe as my confidence and support in relation to this hearing.

“I advised that I wasn’t in a position to take the call as I was with my children. She indicated that she was on her way up the road and I did think that I would speak to her today.

“I didn’t feel that interaction was appropriate.”

Kelly, a Labour TD, said he has a “real concern” with how Rowing Ireland and Sport Ireland have responded to this matter, while TDs and senators also articulated their dismay at the issues discussed throughout the hearing.

Peter ‘Chap’ Cleere, Fianna Fáil TD for Carlow-Kilkenny, asked both Rowing Ireland and Sport Ireland if they wished to apologise to the athletes who have been affected by the controversy.

“We regret that those situations arose,” McWilliams said on behalf of Rowing Ireland. “We don’t want that to happen.”

When pressed for a formal apology from Rowing Ireland, McWilliams declined to elaborate on his previous answer.

When asked the same question, Sport Ireland CEO Dr Úna May said: “We acknowledge with regret the experiences felt by these individual athletes and we are sorry, from our point of view, about the delays that took place.”

After the meeting, the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport released a statement on behalf of Minister Patrick O’Donovan TD, and Charlie McConalogue TD, Minister of State for Sport and Postal Policy.

“Safeguarding of athletes at all levels of sport is a shared responsibility and it is clear that there are lessons to be learned from the issues that have arisen in Rowing Ireland’s handling of the process. These lessons could be applied more generally across sport,” the statement begins.

“While we look forward to the Committee’s report on this matter, the Ministers are of the view that an independent review of the process, procedures and timelines relating to the rowing issues discussed could be helpful. Such a review could also consider how the Irish sports system response to issues such as this can be strengthened.  

“The Ministers have asked the Department to develop terms of reference for such a review and to kickstart a focused review process in a timely manner.

“Recommendations arising from this review could then be actioned and embedded in Ireland’s overall sports governance and administration framework, including in the context of the next 10-year National Sports Policy which is currently commencing development.”

In relation to funding, McWilliams explained that Rowing Ireland receives “in the region of €1.4 million” in funding for their high performance programme.

Sport Ireland director of high performance, Paul McDermott, later revealed that funding for Rowing Ireland was stopped in 2024. Deputy Kelly said towards the end of the meeting that he was disappointed that this information was not disclosed to the committee ahead of the meeting, and that it was “frankly ridiculous.”

“We did reach the point in 2024 where funding was stopped,” McDermott said. “Over a long period of time, as an agency within high performance, we don’t like to weponise funding against agencies. We want to use funding as the last tool in the kit. I think people would appreciate that. We don’t want to be going into any situation whereby there’s a threat of funding every time somebody disagrees with us.”