While sailing on Irish waters may have been curtailed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Irish Sailing Association enjoyed a healthy financial year, recording a financial surplus of €295,927 for 2020 compared with just €16,650 a year earlier.
The organisation ended the year with €921,533 in cash, according to its latest accounts - an increase of almost 200% on the 2019 position. It was helped during the year by support from the Government Wage Subsidy Scheme, along with a contribution of approximately €100,000 from Sport Ireland’s Club Resilience Funding and NGB Covid Support.
The association's accounts anticipate that "much of [its] surplus will be expended in 2021 as restrictions continue and the postponed activities take place in 2021".
The association's financial statements note that severe restrictions on the organisation of sports in 2020 had "the potential to have a devastating financial impact on the organisation" but credits "aggressive cost-cutting measures on operations" for some of its surplus.
However, salary costs at the association rose during 2020 by €20,636 to €721,948, an increase attributed by ISA president David O'Brien to a "deferred cost of living increase granted in January" that year.
Irish Sailing does not publish the number of individual members it represents but its subscription revenue continues its long-term decline with a further drop of 6%, year on year, which undoubtedly reflects decreasing participation in affiliated clubs, regardless of the impact of Covid restrictions. However, the reduction in membership income was largely offset by a 6.5% increase in the Annual Core Sports Grant and the receipt of €73,815 in Government Covid payroll subsidies.
Irish Sailing's surplus of €179,044 recorded in High-Performance Activities arises as a direct consequence of curtailed activities from the impact of Covid and will undoubtedly be called on in 2021 for the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics. In what was supposed to have been an Olympic year, the accounts reveal a sharp fall in income from sponsorship of €134,126 and a much-reduced contribution from the Irish Sailing Foundation of €10,000 compared to €159,126 in 2019.