Every weekend sport plays a major role in our society. Tonight Ireland are playing the world champions Germany in the Aviva stadium and I hope they will qualify for the European Championships. On Sunday Ireland play France in rugby in the hope they will top the group and reach the quarter final the following week. Between tonight and Sunday, millions of people and hundreds of thousands of volunteers in villages and towns will participate in sport. This morning I attended the launch of the Federation of Irish Sport's manifesto for Irish sport. While I welcome the news that the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, will be announcing the allocation of €41 million under the sports capital programme, on behalf of the Federation of Irish Sport, I am calling for a serious debate in the Seanad on sport. I call on the Government to take it more seriously than it has been. The manifesto for Irish sport calls on the Government to adopt and implement a serious sports strategy. We know how important sport is socially and economically. The manifesto recommends the restoration of funding for sport to 2008 levels by 2021 and that we treat funding for sport on a par with that for non-profit organisations by introducing tax relief on donations to sports bodies. The Government should also develop a specialist entity which would be dedicated to looking after how sport could benefit Ireland economically. There should be an agency for the sports tourism industry. After all, €450 billion is spent worldwide on sport, of which Ireland can share in a major part nd give our sportspeople an opportunity to compete on a world level.