Sports minister Patrick O’Donovan announced proposals last week to introduce gender quotas to the governing boards of sports bodies. If 30% of board members are not women, he warned, expect funding cuts.
Former Olympic hurdler Derval O’Rourke, Ireland’s fittest foodie, must have been perplexed. Over a year ago, the Smurfit business school graduate was told by Michael Ring, then sports minister, that she would be appointed to the board of Sport Ireland. But due to delays imposed on appointments to state boards by Shane Ross, the senior minister in O’Donovan’s department, she is still waiting. “If we can’t use our experience to help the future of Irish sport, then we are really missing a trick,” she said.
O’Rourke isn’t used to dilly-dallying. Since retiring from the track in 2014 she has written two cookbooks promising to turbocharge readers’ bodies and minds; has become the Irish Rugby Union Players’ Association player-development manager with Munster rugby squad; and had a baby daughter, Dafne, whose early life she is chronicling for the First 1,000 Days blog, run by food company Danone (apparently breastfeeding is going well but sleep deprivation is “tough”).
O’Rourke has cleared bigger hurdles than indecisive ministers. Injury dogged her career, yet she remains Ireland’s record holder for both the 60m and 100m hurdles. Off the track, she’s as sharp as a pair of running spikes. While most athletes sidestep controversy, O’Rourke leaps in, lambasting dopers and describing the arrest of former Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey in Brazil as “embarrassing”. Surely O’Donovan should be jumping at the chance to appoint her.