James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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The FAI's comments were particularly strange. I do not know where they originated. It came out criticising horse racing. Everybody here has their own view on the sport. I declare my interest; I am a big lover of it. I found its comments pretty bizarre in that it was critical of the horse and greyhound fund. I recognise and respect other people have different views on it. I know Deputy Catherine Murphy has her views. We live in a democracy. I have a different view. I found that a bit bizarre that in its comments, it was critical of the allocation and of how funding is allocated for certain industries and sports. Is there a particular angle where the FAI wants to see a restructuring of how that funding is allocated at the moment?

I come back to my original point. It is one of the most transparent and healthy parts of democracy and the system allocating funding to organisations that all of us can go in and work in tandem with organisations at a grassroots level in every parish of the countryside and our urban areas and work directly with communities so that they can access funding. Of course, errors were made, particularly in respect of registry. Land registry always comes up as a big issue if there are outstanding problems there. However, any club that filled out the documentation correctly and was within the qualifying criteria in my constituency was allocated funding.

I do not see where the problem comes from and why big sporting bodies are critical of that process when it is as transparent as it is. All the figures are published. The process is published and known. A level of preparation has to be done. I want to get a little bit of insight into this review that has been done by Ms Licken's Department. Is it considering changing the system? If it is, I will say to Ms Licken that it is not a good idea.