The FAI are explaining their decision to go ahead with the controversial UEFA Nations League fixture between the Republic of Ireland and Israel as they appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport.
The meeting is led by Sport Ireland and their CEO, Una May, while the FAI, led by CEO, David Courell and President Paul Cooke are also present.
This comes after the Republic of Ireland beat Israel 3-0 on Sunday night in Debrecen, Hungary, with first half goals from Troy Parrott, Adam Idah and Jack Moylan proving the difference on the night.
Prior to this, the game was marred in controversy, with a scheduled Republic of Ireland pre match press conference being cancelled, as well as a pre match training session also being postponed.
A player meeting took place at the team's hotel, with goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu saying that he wanted to withdraw his availability for selection for this game. The squad ultimately decided to go ahead with the game, and David Courell revealed that a re fixed pre match press conference would take place.
As for the match itself, the Republic of Ireland side bowed their heads during the Israeli national anthem, while there was no handshake between the sets of players afterwards. Neither was there a handshake between captains Daire O'Shea and Manor Solomon.
So far at this hearing, Fine Gael TD, Brian Brennan began proceedings by describing the events of the past week as shambolic, per reports in RTÉ.
Mr Brennan went on to ask all three of his questions at once, regarding Gavin Bazunum how he could report his concern, and balance on Gaza. He did also raise the issue of balance, adding that Ireland had competed with Israel in other sports and against Afghanistan in cricket.
Deputy Brennan also claimed that the players have been thrown under the bus by the FAI, who were in turn thrown under a "juggernaut" by UEFA for having to fulfil the fixtures in the first place.
In response, FAI CEO, David Courell said that UEFA have to be impartial and balances in dealing with 55 member nations.
He also added that other Irish athletes have competed against Israeli opponents over recent months, and did not expect the Irish Government to make sporting decision on behalf of the association.
This comes after Taoiseach Micheal Martin had rejected claims by Pro Israel commentators on social media that Ireland is anti-Semitic in the wake of this match between the two countries at the weekend. More on this from Nova here.
