The Irish Amateur Swimming Association will announce the names of its new "change management team" later this week, according to an IASA statement. The team, which it hopes will consist of professional people with backgrounds in psychology, psychiatry, sports management, law and finance, will look at the recommendations of the recently published Murphy report and try to knit those recommendations into the constitution of the IASA.
The president of the association, Ms Mary O'Malley, has a remit to appoint the team, but yesterday an IASA spokesman told The Irish Times that all potential members had not yet confirmed their availability. At least one person, a psychologist, is on holiday.
The team will look at the Murphy report and the IASA constitution and draw up proposals which will be presented to an extraordinary general meeting late next month. All provinces within Irish swimming will be represented at the meeting, although the Murphy report did not investigate allegations of child sex abuse in Connacht, Ulster or Munster.
An IASA spokesman confirmed that the Murphy report would form part of the team's recommendations. The principal task facing the team is incorporating its recommendations into the IASA constitution. It will then have to sell a new constitution to next month's meeting.
The meeting will have the power to reject or accept the recommendations, and therefore it will be the association which will ultimately have the power to implement any change.
The team does not have the authority to make personnel changes within the IASA, an issue which has been at the heart of parent and victim disquiet since the Murphy report was published.
"As far as I can see this is merely another body that will make recommendations to the IASA. But the Murphy report has already done that. What we wanted to see is the people who victimised families, and those who refused to act on information given to them by victims of child sex abuse, out of the sport," a member of the parents and victims group said.
"When are the IASA going to learn that it is the people within the organisation that we object to. For God's sake, they only managed to act on Gibney last year after years of complaints and stories all over the newspapers."
Another added: "Of course, I don't know what this new team is going to do and I'm sure they're good people who will try to change things. But what's a new name? What's a new constitution? It's the same people with different names. They are a tainted organisation. The personnel and the attitudes are still there."
It is also believed that because of legal implications the IASA has been advised to be prudent in what announcements it makes concerning liability over the O'Rourke, Gibney and McCann scandals. There are currently civil actions in train.
