Sports Funding
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Thomas Gould (SF), Cork North-Central

The Minister of State must have no concept of what is happening in women's sports. In Cork we have a club, Glanmire ladies football, that is one of the biggest in the county, if not the country. In 2017, it was a junior B club; in 2018, it won the junior A all-Ireland; and in 2024, it won the intermediate all-Ireland. It has four adult teams but the problem is the boys club has five adult teams. The boys do not have enough pitches, so where does that leave the girls? The president of the club, Brian Lotty, told me this evening they have not been on the pitch this year because they have nowhere to go. This is a club with hundreds of members in one of the biggest areas of Cork city, namely Glanmire, and it does not have any playing pitches. Glanmire ladies football is only an example. Will the Government and Minister of State make funding available for them to buy land to put a pitch on? Will the Minister of State fund female sports - soccer, GAA, rugby and others - so they can purchase land to put pitches on? Right now in Glanmire and clubs like it, women are treated like second-class citizens and it is not right.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03