Mr. Liam McGroarty:

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirleach. Tá áthas orm seans a bheith agam labhairt ar an ábhar tábhachtach seo. UEFA has engaged academics, econometricians and industry experts to quantify in financial terms the value of amateur football in more than 40 countries. The UEFA social return on investment, SROI, model assesses 30 different social, health and education outcomes by gender, age and frequency of participation. To date, the model has been freely shared with other sports, including Irish rugby, Finnish basketball, football and floorball, and European badminton. It has received endorsements from the UN, WHO, the Council of Europe and the EU as the best evaluation tool in sport today.

Being able to quantify in financial terms the impact of physical activity in a very granular way means it is possible to put values on very specific outcomes for specific cohorts of people. It opens the door for private investors to invest in social outcomes. This financial instrument is called a social outcome contract, SOC. Since 2019, the European Investment Bank, EIB, has been investing in SOCs. Upon assessing the UEFA SROI model, the EIB has committed to testing the feasibility of a SOC in sport in two member nations.

A SOC is the reverse of grant funding that is awarded based on outputs written in a grant application and scored by a committee or individual. A SOC begins with identifying a social issue that needs an innovative solution. Funding is secured from the private sector. If the desired outcomes are achieved, only then does the public sector pay the agreed rate. The private investor bears all the risk. There has been significant investment in sport at national and local level over recent decades, but the same hard-to-reach target groups remain inactive. Most sports are designed from a sporting perspective, with athlete development and competition structures receiving the bulk of human and financial investment at local and national levels.

Sport, by default, delivers on many social outcomes. However, it is not common to see sport designed specifically with social outcomes as the primary objective and the primary focus of funding or investment. It is more difficult for clubs from disadvantaged areas to access grant funding. A SOC provides the expertise and opportunities to address this deficit. I will give an example. Bright Star Boxing Academy in the UK was formed in 2016. It was staffed by three volunteers and affected 80 children. In 2020, it benefited from a SOC, receiving £150,000 of capital to deliver on four social outcomes. Today, it has 13 full-time employees, operates four sites and affects more than 400 children. It has a turnover of more than £500,000 and it generates profits.

In Ireland, the national sports policy rightly divides sport into competitive and recreational sport. The policy speaks about deepening evidence and knowledge on the value of

sport. It expresses the intention to develop investment evaluation models tailored to the Irish context and to collaborate beyond the sporting sector. The values that underpin its vision are that funding needs to be based on outcomes, and monitoring and evaluation is critical to that. Achieving the ambitions of the policy will require estimated funding of €220 million annually by 2027, which is double what was provided in 2017. A multi-annual funding commitment is advised and the policy also recognises the need to secure additional private investment.

SOCs are completely in line with the sports policy. Three developments can attest to this alignment. First, the FAI and the IRFU have applied the world's best social impact tool in sport in this country. Second, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has committed to collaborate with sport and pay for social outcomes in two local authorities on a pilot basis. Third, Rethink Ireland can generate the private investment to set up a pilot SOC in sport today.

To finish, I will describe in concrete terms what a SOC in sport could look like. The annual cost of treating type 2 diabetes in this country is €6,600 per adult. Science shows there is a 50% reduction in the disease in people who are physically active. Let us say there are 20 adults in a community who have been assessed by their GP as being prediabetic. If a qualified coach is contracted to provide six hours of sport per week for these people, 66% of them will not become diabetic, which will save the State €30,000 per year. The coach will earn €10,000 that he or she did not get before and the club will receive money for renting its facilities. The State will save at least €10,000 as a consequence of the provision of this single health benefit for a tiny group that is currently under-represented in sport.