Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein)

The announcement of funding and grants is all well and good but how much of it is making its way down to the local community? You do not have to go too far from here to see. Someone living in Pearse House or Markievicz House has almost no good-quality sports or leisure facilities, so the Minister of State can spin and make announcements but families in Pearse House, Markievicz House and Leo Fitzgerald House do not have the facilities they deserve and should have. While we are all talking about announcements and figures, it does not reach ordinary working families in the inner city to make the inner city a more welcoming and friendly place in which to bring up your family. We have seen announcement after announcement of increased funding to the LSSIF but according to a reply to a parliamentary question on the fund, out of the €120 million in allocations announced over the years, barely €10 million has been drawn down so something is not working.

While it is great to see such an increase in funding for the community sport facility fund, by the look of it, it is like "The Late Late Show" - one for everybody in the audience but not delivering any infrastructure, particularly for inner-city communities. In some cases, we see sports clubs being awarded half of what they applied for, which as one applicant said, means that they will not be able to deliver the project. They feel lost because they cannot the thousands of euro required to finish the project. While recent changes around donations to sports clubs will benefit many clubs across the city, it needs to be recognised that these changes will primarily benefit sports clubs in more affluent areas. What is the Government going to do to counter this initiative around tax incentives for sports clubs in more affluent areas? What is it going to do to ensure that the gap in respect of inner-city communities is not increased?

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