Sports Funding
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-03
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Charlie McConalogue (FF), Donegal

On what Deputy O'Rourke said, we know that there are particular challenges with access to swimming pool facilities across the country. That is why the Government provided €100,000 to Swim Ireland to compile the needs analysis report. I have met representatives from the organisation to discuss how we can step that out now. We now know where the challenges are, and we need to decide how we can best respond to them. Clubs and organisations will be able to apply to the community sports facilities fund for funding for pools, but, obviously, new pool development goes far beyond the scale of what is available in terms of the caps that are in place. That is something we are considering. We will continue to engage with Swim Ireland in order to try to see how we can best address this matter.
I agree with Deputy Dolan that female participation is absolutely essential for all clubs. We have seen wonderful work happening within clubs as a result of the fact that we have seen exceptional growth in female participation. Over the course of the past ten years, under the national sports policy, we have seen participation generally grow from 42% of adults participating in sport every week to 49%. We have also seen the gender gap between men and women who participate in sport every week close from a gap of 4.5% down to 2% now. That has been down to the wonderful work happening in clubs. However, we have to recognise that the wonderful growth we are seeing in women's participation in sport in particular, but also across the board, is putting pressure on facilities. That is why it is really important that we invest and put a strong package together for the next round to back clubs in the context of the really exceptional work they are doing.
I thank Deputy Shane Moynihan for the representations on behalf of clubs in his area. I agree with the point he made on the collaboration and synergies by local authorities, ETBs and schools with local clubs.
That is something we want to encourage and promote as part of the next round. If we can develop facilities that can be used by schools and clubs, we will get an exceptional dividend from that investment.
The Deputy's point about Astroturf and artificial pitches is more relevant than ever. They make exceptional use of limited space. We have seen, particularly with the weather we have had in the past couple of months, that the space can be used every week. Grass-based pitches have meant that many have not been able to participate over the past couple of months. That will be a challenge, going forward, that we will have to work to try to address through investment.

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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