IRISH SPORTS COUNCIL Irish Sports Council Launches New Website

15 Apr 2005

The Irish Sports Council’s redesigned website, www.irishsportscouncil.ie, goes live today, April 15.  Since 1999 the ISC has found that electronic communication has been an extremely effective and popular means of communicating with the sports community. The website reinforces the Council’s commitment to providing quality information and service to the sports community.

Under the guidance of Irish Sports Council’s  Matthew Kennedy and Arekibo Communications, the ISC created the new website, www.irishsportscouncil.ie, that aims to serve the wide remit of the organisation. 

The new website includes a full content management solution to increase flexibility and responsiveness and enables the ISC to update information both on and off site. It is aimed at meeting the “information dissemination” statutory requirement of the Sports Council under the 1999 Irish Sports Council Act. Most importantly, the website is compliant to the top level (AAA Standard) of the Guidelines of the Web Accessibility Initiative.

The new site also represents a refreshing of the ISC brand and a restructuring of the ISC content. This enables increased ease of navigation for users and a more structured presentation of ISC Corporate information in line with the external user information requirements.

The work of the Sports Council is extremely wide and varied and encompasses sports development in Ireland at all levels from grassroots to elite performance. The Sports Council website will often act as the main source of information for media outlets and athletes, the National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of Sport and the Local Sports Partnerships throughout Ireland. A state of the art website is essential for an organisation such as the Irish Sports Council.

The key features of the redesigned website that provides ease of access to information for users include:

  • Full compliance with Triple –A accessibility standard for visually impaired users
  • Corporate information on the supports provided to Ireland’s elite athletes and Governing bodies of Sport
  • Information relating to the testing processes of the Irish Sport Anti-Doping programme
  • An interactive section with online DVDs and a feedback facility for users to communicate with the ISC

Previously the Sports Council has introduced PDA handsets to a user community of 140 athletes. The athletes use the PDAs to deliver text-based information to the ISC, via email. The project will enable a target audience of 140 athletes to send this information from sporting events in Ireland and throughout the world.

For Further Information:

Matthew Kennedy @ The Irish Sports Council – 01 860 8801

Michael O’Keeffe @ O’Herlihy Communications – 01 660 2744

Notes for Editors

The Irish Sports Council was founded in 1999 and is the statutory agency responsible for the development of sport in Ireland.