The current rule state that...."Numbers are issued to the individual athlete completing the application form and are non-transferable, except with the specific authority of the Race Secretary."
The 'disciplinary action' I presume would refer to members of athletics clubs who are swapping numbers. For non-club runners, there's not much that can be done except for maybe disqualifying them from that individual race and for individual race organisers to ban them from future events.
Some may be wondering why number swapping is such a big issue? There are probably two main reasons...
1) Insurance and medical.....If a person states on an entry form that they have a certain medical condition and then that race number gets swapped to another person then it might be a serious issue if an accident were to happen.
2) Prizes....This is actually a common problem. A typical example might be say a women in a masters category (F35 and above) giving their race number to a male colleague who then runs a fast time. The women gets listed in the prizes while the rightful winner of a prize loses out. In short, it creates huge problems for the organisers.
Now that UK Athletics has introduced 'disciplinary action' for club runners, should something similar be introduced by Athletics Ireland? Comments.....???