Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 November 2021

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media

Key Priorities and Legislation of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media: Discussion

Photo of Jack ChambersJack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was fantastic to see Maggie Farrelly referee the senior county club final. I hope she is the first of many female referees to officiate across our club and county systems. When she spoke about this, she wanted to focus on the future and on her being one of many female referees. It was brilliant to see what she did.

Through our women in sport programme, we are trying to fund officiating, along with coaching, active participation and reducing the gender gap we see in sport. Having female referees from grassroots level all the way up to the top of our refereeing system is key for all women and girls across the sporting landscape. We are supporting this to the women's sport programme, which focuses on coaching, officiating, participation, leadership and other areas. I congratulate Ms Farrelly and hope she will be one of many female referees. I hope we will see many more county and inter-county finals refereed by women referees.

On the next question, on women in sport more generally, a priority regarding players was to send a strong signal around equality of treatment and parity of esteem. That has happened this year. We have increased the funding allocation for women in sport by 33%. We are trying to be very positive. We are seeing significant growth in participation by young girls in particular. We are seeing this across all sports. There is significant participation in clubs across the country.

As said before, there is attrition, particularly in the teenage years. Sport Ireland is doing a lot of work with the governing bodies on trying to mitigate the attrition in our sporting landscape. Through our local sports partnerships and clubs, a lot of work is being done. In the sport action plan that we are to publish shortly, we will focus very much on trying to narrow the participation gap and make sure women and girls have a full opportunity across the sporting landscape. To be fair, many sports are embracing that agenda in a really positive way when it comes to leadership.

We have a women in sport lead in Sport Ireland, Ms Nora Stapleton, whom the Chairman knows. Ms Lynne Cantwell is the chair of the women in sport steering committee. We are committed not only to matching the funding increases but also to ensuring we see delivery across the participation gap. I am aware that this committee has been very interested in this in recent times.

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