The Olympic Council of Ireland is insisting it cannot secure the extra accreditation for the Olympic Games in Sydney requested by the Minister for Sport and Tourism, Dr McDaid.
The Minister has said he is willing to stay at home in order to allow Mr John Treacy, chief executive of the Irish Sports Council to attend. However, the ministerial accreditation would fall without his presence. The Minister has described his relationship with Mr Pat Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland, as "very poor". Mr Hickey, he asserted, did not want either himself or Mr Treacy to go to the Olympics because there was "bad blood" between them due to arguments over funding.
Mr Jack McGouran, press attache for the Irish Olympic team, said yesterday the OCI was very anxious that both Dr McDaid and Mr Treacy - a former Olympic silver medallist - would attend the games.
"We have gone as high as we can go," said Mr McGouran, speaking from Sydney. "We can only get three passes and that is the same for all countries." He said Mr Treacy could take one of the three passes assigned to the Minister.
A spokesman for the UK Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport told The Irish Times yesterday they had only two official accreditations. The row has been complicated by the fact that the Minister said he was never invited to the Sydney games by Mr Hickey. The OCI wrote to a Department official on August 29th in response to a telephone call a few days earlier. The letter states that an invitation to the games had been issued to Dr McDaid shortly after he took office.
It said prior to the phone call from the Department that the OCI had been "frankly surprised" the Minister or an appropriate Cabinet substitute was not availing of an opportunity to attend the games with accreditation.
A senior Department official responded saying that they were unable to get confirmation on their records of the invitation apparently extended. "Consequently, on foot of a statement in the national media earlier this year attributed to your president, that the Minister would not be invited to attend, no initiative has been taken to seek accreditation for the attendance of the Minister at the Games. The recent contact, which I made with you, was following a statement attributed to the president of the OCI at its a.g.m. that the Minister has actually been invited."
On September 1st Mr Hickey sent a letter to Dr McDaid stating he was "very happy to note that notwithstanding the delay" he had accepted the invitation. It was, said Mr Hickey, "unfortunate that your Department has allowed your [invitation] file to become detached".
He had never made a statement as attributed to either the OCI or himself, he said. "As an experienced politician, you will appreciate that one should never rely on media speculation."
Speaking about the accommodation, Mr Hickey said the OCI would very much have liked to provide the Minister with alternative accommodation "but due to severe shortage of funding we are not in a position to do so".
In his response, Dr McDaid said he too regretted his Department's files did not include the invitation and asked that perhaps Mr Hickey "would be so good as to arrange" to let him have a copy. He asked Mr Hickey to use his "good offices" to secure the necessary accreditation for Mr Treacy.
Dr McDaid wants his party to include Mr Treacy, his political adviser, Ms Cathy Herbert, and the secretary-general of his Department, Ms Margaret Hayes.