An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-21 ============================================================ Gareth Scahill (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach On my way to Dublin this morning, I was listening to RTÉ Radio 1. Darren Freehill aired a piece on the Roscommon Community Sports Park group. It was highlighted on the radio that Roscommon is one of only three counties - the other two being Leitrim and Longford - that do not currently have an athletics track. Darren made a recording from a sand track or a sandpit, which I am familiar with because we used to play soccer there 30 years ago. We used to have blitzes there on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer. After all the investment and all the progress that has happened down through the years, we are still expecting athletes to train on this sandpit without having proper facilities in Roscommon. I acknowledge Roscommon Community Sports Park and the wonderful young people from Roscommon Athletics Club who were interviewed and spoke of how it was inhibiting them from reaching their full potential in athletics. It is a privilege and advantage all the other counties that have these facilities have over them. The fact is they are able to run, sprint and to do hurdles but they are not able to do jumps or throw practice in this facility. Sports capital funding has benefited them down there but they are currently on a €1.5 million fundraising drive to support the new facility's development in Lisnamult. Over the last three years, I have had the privilege of participating in the Roscommon community challenge. It is a night-time run the group runs every year to support that facility but also to support the Special Olympics. The facility is very inclusive and ticks every box we are looking for community groups to tick in order to access funding at the moment. The facility in Lisnamult is one of the few facilities around the country that has an accessible toilet with a hoist in there, should people visit. It is something I encourage any member of this House to go down and visit at some stage to see how inclusive it is and how it has made a place for itself within the community. I look at other parts of the country and I wonder why would people try to pit one element of society against the other - urban against rural and those who have against those who have not. We are all constantly coming into this Chamber on a daily basis, fighting for our corner and fighting to have the same services delivered in rural areas that are delivered in urban areas. I do not think it is helpful for former Members of any of the Houses in Leinster House to make off-the-cuff comments about one element of society supporting others when we all know that is not the case. It is our job to fight for better services, better supports and better utilities like this for the people in our areas. We will continue 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/seanad/2026-04-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:50+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-21