Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the continued investment being made in sport across a range of levels. I refer to the investment to Sport Ireland and the national governing bodies. There is often much criticism - and rightly so - of some of the governing bodies but it should be acknowledged that many of them are effectively implementing the sports strategy. I pay tribute to the Federation of Irish Sport for the leadership it has shown in this regard as well.

I thank the Minister of State for his indication. When we talk about the sports capital and equipment programme and the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, I welcome the fact he is continuing to push for a new round of that fund into the future. As others already indicated, it is critical that when looking at sports funding, we place a premium on sports clubs and sports organisations co-operating together and sharing facilities. Rather than relatively small sums being allocated to a number of clubs, if we had a situation whereby within a town or community a very significant sum was made available, that could make a huge difference. I anticipate that with the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, that would continue to be a priority.

I welcome the fact the Minister of State placed a greater emphasis on women’s participation in sport and as a result of the Oireachtas committee on sport - a number of members of the committee like myself are here - on dealing with questions around positive codes of behaviour. These are particularly useful. I also echo the points Senator Boyhan made around accessibility and ensuring that funding is made available for accessible facilities.

I have a concern around some of the sports capital and equipment programme to date. Certain types of sport, because they do not have the capacity often to apply as they do not have the experience, have not applied in as large numbers as possible. I have always believed that money should be made available for greater elements of capacity building to allow clubs to understand the process and take them through it. I welcome that in the last round, for instance, there was a significant increase in the number of boxing clubs that applied and qualified. We need to address this particularly for minority clubs and sports. We need to target those under-represented sports, and particularly those organisations and clubs in disadvantaged areas, in any future rounds of funding.

I wish to raise two other issues. One is not directly within the Minister of State’s brief but it will have an impact, and that is Government’s decision to close down the international investment programme. When the Minister, Deputy Harris, went into the Department of Justice, he took a decision to pull the shutters down straight away on that programme.The Minister, Deputy McEntee, had resisted a quick shut-down of that programme. The difficulty, as we know, is that there are quite a significant number of sports capital developments which were funded under the international investment programme, IIP. Because the funding has not been completed for a lot of these projects, the IIP team is now trying to deal with the decision to close this programme very quickly. I am not disputing that decision but pulling the shutters down as quickly as has been done will lead to a number of projects potentially not being completed. The difficulty is that those clubs, organisations and projects will end up back at the Minister of State's door. I am sure the Minister of State is aware of this because it does not just impact on sport. A lot of the clubs are impacted. I ask the Minister of State to engage with the Department of Justice to ensure that any of those programmes that are currently being funded through the IIP can be brought to fruition. It would be crazy to have half completed programmes simply because there was a decision to close it so quickly.

Finally, I applaud the fact that the Minister of State has stood up to the National Transport Authority and the chief executive of Dublin City Council, unelected officials, for trying to move the Dublin City Marathon out of the city centre. The State needs to support the national marathon. In every other major city around the world the marathon is celebrated yet these unelected officials are trying to move it away from the city centre. For international visitors this is something they want to see. I applaud the Minister of State and encourage him to continue to engage with the relevant parties to ensure that the city marathon remains in the city.