Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is wonderful to have the Department and Sport Ireland appear here and earlier we had the FAI, GAA and IRFU. Everyone welcomes the money and the systems from a point of view of higher-level supports to ensure we have continuity of the GAA championships, professional rugby and the League of Ireland in particular, and maintenance of all sorts of sports clubs.

There was talk of difficulties and the fact that sports organisations do not know what they will face into in the future. No more than businesses and other such entities in our society, there will be a need for further supports. People have talked about stadia and we all welcome and would look for opportunities for more people to avail of seeing their favourite teams. However, until it gets up to really significant numbers, it would not necessarily be financially beneficial to clubs and beyond. There was a suggestion that 5,000 fans in the Aviva Stadium - which one cannot even see happening at the moment - would not be financially viable and there would need to be about 18,000. Given where we are at the moment, that is incredibly difficult to see.

What contacts have the Department made in relation to budgeting and planning for the future? We are now talking about at least six to nine months but we could be talking about two years of living with this pandemic.

We could have two steps forward and three steps backwards like we have at the minute and that could put severe pressure on clubs at every level.