Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and welcome both Ministers. First, with regard to tourism, I welcome the development of a national tourism policy and the commitment for the financial investment that will accompany that. There are a couple of issues and we spoke about it at a recent meeting we had with the vintners and the restaurant association. With regard to hospitality, there is nobody on the tourism recovery oversight committee or as directors of either Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland. It is important that there would be representation from the hospitality sector on those organisations. Fáilte Ireland states that it does not have a remit for hospitality, which I do not understand. Tourism and hospitality go hand in hand. It is an issue that needs to be addressed. As for a question, are there any plans for a new stay-and-spend scheme? Funding was allocated to it in the budget but, naturally enough, that has not been spent. What sort of a system are we looking at to help with rebooting the tourism sector?

For sport, I noted in the comments of the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, the target of 60% participation levels in sport by 2027. The Minister of State made comments about the high performance strategy but all sporting organisations need to concentrate on participation levels within sport and not only on the elite. Maybe we need to do an audit on the various sports throughout the country to learn the level of participation within those organisations to make sure that we hit that target in 2027.

I welcome the commitment to more funding support for organisations. In particular, I am very much involved in the GAA, and have been all my life. It gave us great joy last year. I ask for a commitment to support the club structure and to make sure that the championship flows this year.

I note the Minister of State's comments on the large-scale infrastructure fund which has been closed for a number of years. Would I be right in saying that the fund will open for applications later on this year? It is extremely important that it be opened up to allow others to start to develop long-term plans to develop their grounds or facilities. Is that the case?

In regard to the sports capital programme, the Minister mentioned the figures, namely, €200 million in applications for a €40 million fund with over 3,000 applications. We need to look at increasing the amount of money in that fund. I am from Longford and I will be biased. I was looking at the figures. Between 2017 and 2019, Longford received the lowest amount per person allocated from the sports capital programme, with €20.99 as against an average of €32.88. When we are making decisions on that with the sports capital programme, we need to achieve a balance in per capitaexpenditure across the country. We are the lowest in the country, at €20.99 as against an average of €32.88.