The Government has made clear that a focus on capital investment is a key and central priority of this Government. The Taoiseach will have seen the report today from KPMG identifying that a €70 billion investment in Dublin will be needed. That is in the area of housing and wastewater, but investment that always produces returns is investment in sport. The Federation of Irish Sport held a well-attended briefing this morning in the AV room where it emphasised the need for multiannual funding in sport to support the more than 450,000 volunteers participating in sport and the return on that investment for the State. The Minister of State might comment on any of the submissions the federation is making, both at a budgetary level and in general, in terms of the investment the Government is going to continue to make in sport.

I thank Deputy Geoghegan for raising this issue. I was delighted to attend the Federation of Irish Sport annual awards last week and see the great progress that so many of our national governing bodies were doing. The Government is committed to continuing the pathway we have been on, which is significantly increasing funding for sports to the national governing bodies but particularly to our clubs across the country to develop their facilities further. We saw a significant allocation of €270 million last year in terms of the sports facilities fund. That is something we are now delivering and looking towards building on by opening that up again next spring.

In the meantime, we will continue to work with the national sporting bodies through Sport Ireland, which does exceptional work in supporting clubs across the country as regards improving participation. We are seeing that particularly in terms of increased female participation across all sports.

We look forward to continuing to work with Deputy Geoghegan and all other Deputies on the significant progress we have been making.