Sports Funding
Seanad Éireann — 2023-04-27
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Barry Ward (FG), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I acknowledge the extensive rundown the Minister of State has given of the contributions and the commitment that the Government has made to sport. I welcome that and acknowledge it.
I am particularly grateful for what the Minister of State said in relation to the issue I raised and I am happy to engage with him after this debate. I do not want to name any organisations on the record but it is important that we recognise that many national sporting bodies have a huge amount of work to do to marry their commitment to mainstream sports with their commitment to para-sports. The Minister of State mentioned Special Olympics Ireland as well. There are many sporting bodies involved in this stream of sporting activity. Within some of them, sometimes there is a disconnect between their publicly stated commitment to para-sports, and the commitment they give to applications, qualification criteria and helping paralympians, potential paralympians or para-sports people to meet those criteria, whatever the qualification criteria might be. I very much welcome what the Minister of State has said and I am happy to engage with him.
I also welcome what the Minister of State said about there not being a lack of funding. I wonder if, in that regard, we could help Paralympics Ireland to put in place a person whose job is to specifically target the qualification process for paralympians.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2023-04-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-04-27