Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was not aware we had the wonderful Minister of State in front of us. I want to acknowledge the kind words the Cathaoirleach said. The Minister of State is a great ambassador for politics. I think he first ran for election in November 1982 and he is now a junior Minister. I am delighted to have him here.

I am bringing this issue of where we are going regarding athletics in County Cork to this forum this afternoon. This is a really important issue. We need get an understanding of how we can make sure athletics in Cork can be protected. We have a bizarre situation at the moment, in that there is no 400 m track available in the county. We also have a scenario where the Mardyke is now permanently closed due to issues with the track. The old track in the Munster Technological University, MTU, is permanently closed with no timeline as to when it will be brought into action.

There are 55 athletics clubs in County Cork, with 8,400 athletes competing. They have no track to train on or compete on at the moment. I believe the county championships for County Cork will have to be held in Kerry. Some people are now going to Limerick or Waterford to train because we do not have a suitable arena to cater for our athletes who are doing so much.

Not even that, we have international, high-performance athletes who cannot actually train in County Cork at the moment either because we do not have a 400 m track. It is absolutely bizarre. I am sure Members of this House and people looking in are thinking it is strange that a county the size of Cork, with more that 500,000 people, does not have a suitable track to train on.

As a result of that, I raise the case of what is happening in Bandon, particularly Bandon Athletic Club. This is a fantastic club, one of the biggest in Ireland and with an unbelievable track record. I have to mention two people in particular, Billy Good and Catherine Duggan, who did so much over the past few years. Poor Billy is no longer with us. It really is an area and a population that needs to see this track developed. They have done so much work in a very short space of time. They got a grant of €20,000 from Cork County Council and a sports capital grant of €290,000 in 2020. I visited the track in the last few weeks. Literally, all it needs is an injection of cash from the Government to make sure this track is completed and we will have what we rightly need, which is a suitable track for everyone to compete and train on.

At the moment, we have a crisis in Cork when it comes to athletics tracks. They do not exist. We need to find a plan. Bandon is up an running, literally. Please pardon the pun. We just need to finish it. The only way we can do so is to find emergency funding to be put in place to finish this unique project, which the community and the entire west Cork regions wants to have finished.

This is a suitable opportunity for the Government to step in and deliver the pot of money that is required. Otherwise, we will have the bizarre scenario of large numbers of people from County Cork travelling every weekend to Kerry, Limerick and Waterford to go training. It does not make sense. To think that the county championships are now going to be held in Kerry is absolutely bizarre.

We need intervention here. I am calling on the Minister with responsibility for sport to look at the pot of money that is available. There is an awful lot of money that has not been drawn down from the sports capital grant. This could be looked at regarding putting a special fund in place. If we do not, we will have a year with no running in this county. Not having a track available is simply unacceptable. We all talk about mental health and well-being and we want to encourage people to get outside after a terrible winter. We need to get funding for this, if we possibly can.