Last January, we heard an awful lot of fairly shocking evidence at the Oireachtas joint committee on sport in both public and private sessions, in relation to Rowing Ireland and the practices of the high-performance programme over the past five years in Cork and around the country. Off the back of those hearings, both public and private, the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, announced that an independent inquiry would be launched into what transpired and how to prevent athletes from going through similar circumstances when they are representing Ireland and training for that.

I welcome the news this week that an independent inquiry will begin. It has been set in motion. Amanda Bennett will chair the inquiry. It will begin immediately and a report will be published at the end of this calendar year. This is really encouraging because these athletes have been waiting for movement on this. There was a bit of momentum at the beginning of the year but this inquiry will begin. Amanda Bennett will not be known to a lot of people in Ireland, which is probably a good thing because it needs to be an independent inquiry. She is a governance expert. She is the former head of governance at UK Sport. She has literally written the book on sport governance. I would be the first person to be giving out if we had not picked the right person but this is a very positive moment for Irish sport, its integrity and the safeguarding of our athletes, which is what I will always go back to. I encourage all of the rowers, former rowers, parents and family members of rowers who have been emailing me in their droves, to now get in touch with the investigation and Amanda Bennett.

This is the avenue to be heard, first, but also to be spoken to. There will be interviews happening all summer and then the chair of the inquiry, Amanda Bennett, will report back to the Minister. I have asked that the terms of reference of the inquiry be wide enough that the findings of the report will be applicable to the wider landscape in sport because we have work to do on the safeguarding of our athletes elsewhere. Rowing, rather than being an isolated problem, is probably the tip of the iceberg, and we need to be aware of that. As I keep saying in the House, we need a sport integrity unit. I hope that will come out of the findings of this report.

I welcome the inquiry and investigation launched this week by the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, which went to Cabinet yesterday. I look forward to our rowers and former rowers engaging with the process and accepting the findings of the report.