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

Through the local sports partnerships and the Women in Sport fund, there is the Adolescent Girls Get Active research report from 8 March last. That research has been informative in how we shape future funding schemes through the Women in Sport fund and also how we fund local sports partnerships. From a positive perspective, strengthening that link between our education system and our local clubs and sporting organisations is important. We have seen better co-operation between schools and local clubs. For example, in the sports capital and equipment programme, schools with clubs can now look for funding, which was not there before. It was there in the last couple of rounds, but historically that was not the case. We are anxious to strengthen that engagement with our education system. Due to Covid, it has been difficult for schools to do this alone over the last 18 months. We are anxious to do more and to involve sport more within schools. We are anxious to try to narrow the attrition that happens, which can sometimes impact future participation through people's adult lives.

It is an important area to try to narrow the participation gap and we are anxious to make progress there. There are targeted interventions, as I said, through the Women in Sport Fund and also through local sports partnerships which we fund centrally from Sport Ireland.