Sports Funding Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-06 ============================================================ Charlie McConalogue (FF), Donegal Gabhaim buíochas leis na Seanadóirí Harmon agus Ní Chuilinn. I thank them for coming together on a cross-party and cross-floor basis today as well. I do not think it is any accident that happened on the topic of sport because, as Senator Harmon said, sport is something that brings people together from all walks of life and, indeed, from all sides of politics as well. I also want to thank both Senators for taking the opportunity today to highlight the previous Oireachtas joint committee's report on inclusion in sport. It is important that we look back on the progress on that report, particularly as we commence preparations now towards the next ten-year national sports strategy, which will commence from 2028 onwards and which we will complete over the course of the end of this year and next year. Looking at some of the recommendations from that report, I am pleased to report that there has been good progress on a number of those, particularly in relation to embedding sport legacy benefits in the approach of major sports events, accessibility requirements in sports capital funding programmes and building a network of inclusion-focused personnel. The national sports policy sets out a vision for sport in Ireland running up to 2027. The policy is grounded in its sport for all ethos that emphasises inclusion within sport and increasing participation among under-represented cohorts. Substantial progress has been made since the policy's inception and Irish sport is undoubtedly a more diverse and inclusive place as a result. This policy contains an ambitious plan to eradicate the gender participation gap over the lifetime of the policy and significant strides have been made in this regard. The 2024 Oireachtas joint committee report highlights the importance of evidence-based policymaking and research in this area. This certainly underpins the approach taken by Sport Ireland across a range of headings. The Irish sports monitor report for 2024 found that active sport participation levels among women is at 47% now, which is an increase of one percentage point since 2023 and, really importantly, that the gap between men and women is now down to a historically low level of 3%. It is not only on the field of play where there is evidence of real progress in relation to the visibility of women in sport. The overall percentage of women on the boards of national governing bodies of sport is currently 47%, representing an increase of 18% since 2020. In the case of local sports partnerships, 52% of board members are women. Alongside active participation and representation in leadership, visibility is a key pillar of Sport Ireland's women in sport policy. Despite the substantial progress made in recent years, there remains significant work to do with regard to the visibility of women's sport in the media, which is something Senator Ní Chuilinn touched on in her contribution today. The 2024 report correctly highlighted the need to remove visibility barriers to inclusion in sport. In this context, I welcome Sport Ireland’s recent publication of the first ever study of gender balance in sports media coverage. The research demonstrated that women remain significantly under-represented in Irish sports media. The Future of Media Commission has called for the development of a diversity and inclusion strategy for sports reporting and broadcasting. In response, Coimisiún na Meán is currently in the process of developing a sports strategy in consultation with Sport Ireland. Since the publication of the committee's report, Sport Ireland launched a statement on commitment and action to disability inclusion in sport in November 2024. Increased funding was provided to sport in budget 2025, which enabled Sport Ireland to establish a dedicated disability in sport funding stream and, really importantly, appoint a disability in sport lead. Despite recent progress, there remains an enduring participation gap between persons with either a long-term illness or a disability and those without such challenges. Both my Department and Sport Ireland are committed to reducing this participation gap. In 2025, we saw €2 million awarded to the national governing bodies and local sports partnerships as part of the dormant accounts funding via the equality, diversity and inclusion fund. The aim of this fund is to support our national governing bodies and sports partnerships in delivering projects that address barriers to participation for individuals from diverse communities regardless of their socio-economic background, gender, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity. This is a critical initiative that directly responds to a key theme of the 2024 report, and I know it will be welcomed by colleagues. --- 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/2026-05-06/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-06