Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

While I support wholeheartedly the call from Senator Ó Brolcháin for a debate on the dearth of public transport for people living in rural Ireland, he should first direct his attention to the existing rural transport services being capably provided by the rural transport initiative. That scheme is constantly under threat. We are not even sure whether the schemes in place at present that serve rural areas, and predominantly elderly people living in those areas, are secure. The first area we should focus on is ensuring the retention of those services.

I wish to raise the capital sports grants allocation scheme which has been on pause for almost two years. A few weeks ago the House debated the new child care legislation on Second Stage and many Members quite correctly pointed to the benefit of early intervention in ensuring young people do not end up in a situation where they must be taken into care by the State. Part of the early intervention mentioned by a number of Senators was access for young people to proper sporting facilities in every community, both urban and rural. The sports grants scheme was doing incredibly valuable work in that regard but was simply suspended without any reason, other than what I consider to be the spurious suggestion that there was to be a re-evaluation of the scheme and its effectiveness. I do not believe that was the case.

The national lottery continues to make a profit of approximately €250 million per annum. Where is that money going now? Is it being stockpiled until the scheme is reinstated or is it being spent in other areas by the Exchequer? The national lottery scheme must continue to operate in an honest manner. The people who subscribe to the national lottery do so on the basis that their money is being spent on such facilities. I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on this issue and to try to establish, as quickly as possible, when the scheme is likely to be reinstated.