Ireland, the second-lowest ranked of the 16 teams going into the London tournament, shocked the USA, India (twice) and Spain on the way to reaching Sunday’s final, where they were hammered 6-0 by the Netherlands.
Prior to Monday’s announcement by the minister, Sport Ireland’s total funding to Irish hockey was set to be just over £820,000 in 2018.
To draw a comparison, British hockey is receiving more than £17m in the current Olympic cycle, running from 2017 until the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Almost £460,000 of the Irish funding comes from Sport Ireland’s high performance unit with Hockey Ireland receiving just over £232,000 to administer the sport.
A further £40,000 comes from Sport Ireland’s carding scheme for elite Irish athletes with just over £31,000 coming from the Women in Sport programme in addition to a one-off payment in the region of £53,000 for Ireland’s World Cup campaigns in both the men’s and women’s games this year.