Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with Deputy Coppinger's comments first. The point she makes is fair. We should examine in detail the proportionate amounts given to these various organisations, as we do. The €150,000 for the Women in Sport programme comes from the Supplementary Estimate. The Deputy rightly points out that, superficially, that is only one fifth of the amount given to golf. We doubled the funding for the Women in Sport programme to €2 million. In the area of disability, we created a new €1 million programme for disability sport through the deployment of sports inclusion disability officers in all 26 local sports partnerships countrywide. We also gave a €1.5 million allocation to high-performance programmes in support of the Tokyo 2020 preparations. We have certainly acknowledged, through the supplementary grant of €500,000 to women's hockey out of the IAA dividend, the tremendous success of Irish women in sport in the past year. We will continue to provide support in the future. We have a bit of catching up to do in that area. That is readily acknowledged. We are determined to do that.

The Acting Chairman raises a good point. Golf is always painted as very elitist. In many clubs playing golf at a high level is only open to the better off, but there are pitch and putt clubs all around the country. That should be acknowledged. People derive a huge amount of benefit for their health and mental health from pitch and putt. It is to be found in every village in Ireland. It is not an elitist sport which should not be encouraged in the same way as any other sport. It works at all sorts of levels. We must not forget that high-performance sport is one thing and big events another, but participation at village and street level is more important. While we all applaud the great achievements of our sportsmen and sportswomen around the world and the medals and great titles they have brought back, I have no hesitation in saying that the real benefit of sport to the nation is found in the young boys and girls one sees every weekend getting huge benefits for their mental and physical health while being kept away from other pursuits which might not be so good for them. That is the great benefit of sport. Participation is equally important - and probably much more important - for the health of the nation than the medals, which we applaud. The medals and icons are very important. It is important to have people who are great achievers, but having large numbers of people actively participating on the ground is emphasised in our sports policy equally to, if not more so than, the achievements of high-performing athletes.