Sports capital grants
Senator Byrne urged an update and later statements on the forthcoming sports capital grant allocation, stressing its importance for many sports.
I will speak for a moment about the upcoming sports capital grant allocation. It is very important that this is a large allocation put forward by the Department and the Minister of State with responsibility for sport, particularly in the context of more public participation than ever before in our games across GAA, soccer, rugby and hurling but also those games that do not receive the same amount of attention. I call on the Minister of State to come into this Chamber to give an update on the forthcoming sports capital grant. Perhaps later we would have statements on the sports capital grant. One key thing for me is that the last allocation supported grants of up to €200,000 for individual sports clubs but given that we have a high rate of inflation and cost of construction at the moment, I call for that rate to be increased to perhaps as high as €300,000 to maximise the opportunities for various clubs right across the country to be able to access that funding. The last round of funding was very supportive in increasing the allocation for clubs that strove to increase both male and female participation. It is very important that as we look forward towards 2030, 2040 and 2050, particularly in the GAA context where we are going to have integration across the three associations, that yet again there is an extra allocation of marks and funding for organisations and clubs that demonstrate a clear increase in female participation in sports.