Sports Funding
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-20
============================================================

Ryan O'Meara (FF), Tipperary North

I would like to raise the case of Youghalarra National School in Newtown in relation to its summer works programme funding which came from the Department of education. It was a very useful grant and was for the installation of a 608 sq. m ball court. However, to have the best usage of that court and to mitigate against injuries, the board of management wish to have an AstroTurf surface installed on this. This would be very achievable with the funds allocated, but unfortunately the guidelines from the Department of education only allow for tarmac and concrete surfaces to be considered.
The reason I have asked this question is that this is a somewhat stand-alone school. For safety reasons, it needs the sports facilities within the school grounds. I am looking to see if we can get a stand-alone application for the school. Is it possible to engage with the Department of education? The Department of education is giving money to build the court but says its surface can only be tarmacadam or concrete or something along those lines when AstroTurf would work and would suit what the Minister of State's Department is trying to do. I think it is absolutely incredible and unbelievable that the school would not be able to do that.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-20