The Irish Sports Council has provided an overview of its strategy for 2014 by announcing a €25m (£20.4m) investment programme for the year.

The core activities of 59 Governing Bodies of Sport will receive €10.6m (£8.7m), while €583,000 (£477,000) will be dedicated to Women in Sport activities across the national governing body (NGB) sector.

The National Network of Local Sports Partnerships will receive €5m (£4m) to support its work in promoting participating in sport and physical activity.

€8.7m (£7.1m) will be invested directly into high performance sports bodies and will continue to build on the success of high performance sport in Ireland which saw a record 67 medals achieved last year at European and world events across a multitude of sports.

With the Special Olympic Ireland Games taking place in Limerick in June, an additional provision of €200,000 (£163,000) has been made available to Special Olympics Ireland.

In addition to High Performance, Governing Bodies and Participation, the Council will continue to lead the development in areas such as Anti-Doping Coaching, the Institute of Sport, National Trails and Research.

In 2013, over 200,000 people took part in local participation programmes while mass participation events such the An Post Cycle Series and Operation Transformation national walks and fun runs attracted over 35,000 participants.