I met Johnstown Football Club recently. Although I will bring this up locally, for sure, like many councillor colleagues in County Meath, I want to make the Chamber, the Leader and the Minister aware of how we can build a huge community in a town and provide them with zero facilities. I will shock them with some of these numbers. It is an incredible situation. I am speaking about Navan and the community is Johnstown. Imagine having 4,000 homes and more than 12,000 people living in them, with not even a playground, never mind sports facilities. There is nothing there. There is nowhere for a boxing club to spar, nowhere for a karate club to train, nowhere for the soccer club to play. Johnstown is larger than many towns across Ireland and does not have anything close to the community facilities that other towns have.

I met the local soccer club recently, as I said. It celebrated its 20th anniversary celebrations in 2024, marking two decades of commitment, volunteerism and growth in the Johnstown community. It has to train somewhere on the other end of the town. As it prepares to compete in the North East Football League, NEFL, premier division next season, Johnstown FC will be the only club in the premier division without its own home pitch. For a club representing such a large and fast-growing area in Navan, this is both unsustainable and unfair, and it highlights the urgent need for Meath County Council to engage meaningfully on this issue.

Johnstown FC has capital available. It is a progressive club run by an incredible group of volunteers. This is just one example of a sports club with no home in this village. There is nowhere to play in the village, no playground and no large community facility. There is nowhere where we can go to hire out a hall and do yoga or Pilates, play badminton or play tennis outside, yet houses are being built at a fast pace in this area. Meath is a progressive council with regard to the number of houses it was building. I am just focusing on the lack of community facilities in this area. We know that when there is a lack of community facilities, that can lead to antisocial behaviour.

I would appreciate if the Leader could have a discussion with the Minister for sport and see what we can do to help to progress this with Meath County Council. Do not get me wrong, I am sure that Meath County Council would love to see a sporting facility in Johnstown and a playground there. We just have to work around how we do it while we are building the massive number of houses that we are building.