Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and welcome the Minister of State. I am glad he did not forget the Meath women in the list of accomplishments he rattled off. He could not congratulate them at the end. I note that six of the eight nominees for sportsperson of the year in Ireland in the RTÉ awards on Saturday are leading female athletes and footballers from across the country. That is noteworthy. I hope the judging panel do the right thing and pick Vikki Wall, our Meath full forward, for the award.

I thank the Minister of State for his remarks in respect of the €2.4 million for Ladies GAA. We met him earlier this year and said he was committed to it, and he has delivered on that. Plenty has been written and spoken about women's sport in the past 24 hours, in particular the game of women's rugby

I hope that all those people who are tweeting about this bother their asses to come out and support some of these games. If they do, we will have a full Aviva Stadium and Croke Park for all of these games. I hope that all the Twitter bots bother to come to support the games in person. In respect of the controversy that has blown up, what was most disappointing was the IRFU's response that it refuted the tenor of the statement by the people who signed the letter. One person who signed that letter is Lynne Cantwell, a Rolestown native I interviewed in my days as a sports journalist. I know her character and she did not do that lightly. How far will this meeting with the IRFU go? The Minister of State and the Government committed significant Covid support funding, of €18 million, to the IRFU on Monday. Will he threaten to withhold some of that funding from the IRFU if it is not willing to display the necessary changes that are being demanded by these international players?