James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The reason I raise this is because it is killing the fabric of rural communities. The parish identity is very important in rural areas, with community involvement in local sports and so on. When people move to another parish, they tend to move through the various grades of football in their adopted parish, rather than in the local parish. This is causing problems for some rural parishes at the moment. Sport has little to do with education, but it is causing problems in those areas.