We are all excitedly looking forward to the opening of the sports capital grants. It is a very important scheme for sports clubs and organisations right across the county. Traditionally, in County Longford we have done very well out of this scheme. However, there is a note of caution in relation to this year's scheme because the Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnois recently issued a diktat that schools will not be allowed to make their grounds available to community groups to use outside of school hours. As my colleagues know, one of the conditions of the sports capital funding is that the facility needs to be open to other sports groups to use outside of school hours. Obviously, I am disappointed with the bishop's position on this. It is a retrograde decision from him. I am aware of many communities where people were hoping to put in applications on their school grounds, linking in with other community groups. They are in the shadow of curates, parochial houses and churches that were funded and built by the hard graft of our ancestors back in the 1920s and 1930s when we did not have a proverbial penny for the pot.

I do not think the bishop is for changing on this, and that is hugely disappointing. I ask the Minister not to penalise those groups that are at an advanced stage with their projects and ready to submit an application. Bishops come and go. I am not wishing any ill on the bishop and maybe he will be promoted and we will have a new bishop. These projects normally take a number of years to get started and get to fruition. I hope that consideration and some concession can be given to the schools in County Longford and the wider Ardagh and Clonmacnois diocese. It would be extremely demoralising for these small rural schools and communities that are totally dependent on sports capital funding. I appeal directly to the Minister to make an exception for the Longford applicants.

I have one final point, if the House could facilitate me. I want to remember a young lady who passed away in the parish of my colleague Senator Brady this week. Máire Lillis was a 24-year-old young woman with a heart bigger than this House. She was a young woman who opened that heart to so many people and was involved in so many aspects of her community, most notably the Irish Girl Guides. She got a wonderful send-off by the good people of Drumlish and Ballinamuck yesterday in the glowing sunshine. It was a farewell befitting a young woman with such an enormous heart. My thoughts and my prayers are with her parents Mary and PJ, her brother Pádraig and her sister Niamh on what will be a difficult time ahead for them. On a day when the sun is shining brightly, no heart shone brighter than Máire Lillis's.