Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the witnesses and thank them for their contribution. I come from a sporting background, playing club and intercounty football for my native county of Louth for over 16 years. I was lucky enough to manage my senior football team for four years and currently I am chairman of Louth county board. I also played for Dundalk football and rugby clubs, and I am a member of the local running club in Dundalk.

As we know, over the past six months the country has probably been through one of the most difficult periods in its history. During the pandemic, every member of society was affected in one way or another. It has been a very difficult time for everybody, including older people, who had to cocoon and were, in effect, isolated from society. Younger people, meanwhile, were confined to indoors and separated from their friends. If any positive is to be taken, we can look at how the sporting organisations at local levels rallied and gave their support to the most vulnerable people in the area.

My local sporting clubs in Dundalk stepped in and supported the most vulnerable people in the area. Members did many daily tasks for people confined to their homes, arranging grocery shopping and collection of medicine and ensuring that necessities were available at all times. This was an example of true community spirit.

This was not just confined to Dundalk. Sporting clubs and organisations in the county and all over Ireland stepped up when needed. A great effort has been made by these clubs and it is important that we look after them because of the effort they put in. In recognition of the great effort they made, it is important that we in politics and the people in the organisations running these great sports also step up to the plate. There is no doubt these local clubs have suffered financially during the Covid-19 pandemic. We had financial supports for businesses, which was right, but we must also support our sporting organisations.

I welcome the Government commitment to provide over €40 million to sporting organisations but we must also support our clubs. As I said, these clubs facilitated the only contact that people had in many cases during the period in which they cocooned. We must recognise the benefit of such work by clubs in the community, particularly with respect to mental health of people in that community. There is a financial benefit to those actions and, as such, we should provide relevant financial support to these clubs. They provided an invaluable service and in many ways they helped maintain, among other things, people's positive mental health during a most crucial time.

Looking at the overall picture, it is clear that sport, health and fitness became more popular during lockdown. People are now realising the importance of their health and the impact it can have on mental health and resilience. I was particularly struck by the increase in the number of people I saw walking and running in my local town of Dundalk. As a sporting person, it gives me great heart to see so many people involved with fitness. In this respect, I offer the delegations my full support in efforts to promote and sustain the sport they represent. They need Government support to maintain and grow their great achievements. We have great tradition for sport in Ireland and this must be continued.

We must also take advantage of the new interest in health and fitness as everybody in society will benefit from that. The more active and healthy a person's lifestyle, the less time that person will spend being ill, and that in turn will benefit health services and ultimately leave more resources available to the Government.

I am a sports person and I realise the contribution made by sport over the past six months. It is also great to see people taking such an interest in sport. How would people have survived without sport? It is very important that regular exercise be actively encouraged and that kids are involved in sport throughout school, whether it is soccer, Gaelic football or rugby. It is important that sport is not just a hobby but also part of life.

The work done in summer camps really struck me this year and I commend the witnesses on this. I am not trying to promote the GAA but it had 71,000 children attending Cúl camps and there were practically no coronavirus cases. That is absolutely fantastic. I encourage more people to get outdoors. I would like to see more spectators going to matches. The witnesses said earlier that the three groups are working together but what plans are there to get more spectators to see these matches?