Kildare football pitch access
Farrelly says a publicly funded pitch is controlled by a separate private entity, leaving 6,000 children without access for league or cup matches. The Taoiseach says he will investigate and argues the taxpayer-funded facility should serve the community.
Over 20 years ago, the Government allocated €350,000 of sports capital grant to the KDUL, the Kildare District Underage League, for grassroots football. In 2023, that was finally drawn down to develop a state-of-the-art all-weather football pitch. In that time, no KDUL league or cup match has happened on this pitch, which is fully open, because a different entity, the KDUL CLG, has full ownership of it. I do not believe this was the intended use of that sports capital fund. I raised this on the floor of the Dáil last year with the Minister, who said that there was nothing to see here, that the fund had been drawn down, but we are still at a complete impasse. Will the Taoiseach ask the Minister to convene a meeting with all stakeholders? We have the KDUL, the KDUL CLG-----
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It is a private entity. It is essentially an academy football team and it has full ownership of it.
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It is a completely different entity. This means 6,000 kids have no football.
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This is not something that should be resolved in Dáil Éireann. This is crazy. I do not understand the full background to this. Obviously, someone applied who should not have applied. Is that it, or was there previously an harmonious relationship? I presume there was an harmonious relationship between the two entities when the grant was originally applied for. I will have to find out the background and will talk to the Minister. It is terrible. The kids should be playing on the pitch. We put the money in. It is taxpayers' money. It belongs to the community. That is how it should happen. We will have to watch how that model works because that cannot happen again.