Even as he spent part of last week defending Ireland’s “excellent” performance in the Olympics against “unjustified criticism”, John Treacy was looking ahead to London 2012.

The chief executive of the Irish Sports Council (ISC) is fully aware that Ireland is expected to improve on the three medals it has won in Beijing when its athletes compete in the nearest Olympic venue to home.

“The bar has been raised and we will have to set ambitious targets,” Treacy said. “We have already started to talk to the governing bodies of each sport about their plans.”

Ireland, he admits, is behind countries such as Britain when it comes to high performance sport. “We are playing catch-up, but compared to four years ago the running of sport here has become more professional.” To improve further, he said, efforts have to be focused on “talent identification” and providing more assistance for top athletes through the Institute of Sport, an advisory body.

“We are a small country and investing in sports where we have a chance of getting returns is the best way to go.

“Track and field sports are central to the Olympics and we will always support those, but there are others like cycling, rowing, boxing and swimming that we have done well in and we will look to continue this.”

Talent identification involves finding potential athletes and matching them to a sport where they could excel.

“Many of our best athletes play field games. We need to do more to promote others and find people who are suited to them,” he said. Ireland, he believes, can learn from Britain, where plans for London 2012 involve schemes aimed at spotting potential female athletes, checking if failed footballers can be diverted into other sports, trying to encourage tall people to try out rowing and volleyball and moving people from one sport to another if tests show they could do better.

Treacy says funding is a key issue. “We need to be able to invest in both our top-level programmes and those aimed at increasing participation in sport,” he said. Stung by criticism of the Irish team’s results in Beijing, Treacy said: “Sometimes the expectations Irish people have of what can be achieved are just not realistic.

“We set a target of six finalists or six top-eight finishes in Beijing and we more than achieved that.”

A total of ¤34m was spent on Ireland’s preparations for the Olympics in the past four years.

“Where we had talented athletes, we ensured they have enough support to make the grade,” Treacy said.

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