Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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Projects seeking to enhance women's participation in sport are a priority for the Department and are very much encouraged. I am aware that there are facilities around the country to which women do not have the same access as men. Colleagues in the Seanad agreed last week that this certainly is a problem and one that is not discussed much in public. This year, I have introduced a requirement that every club that receives a sports capital grant will have to certify that men and women have similar access to the facilities. In the case of a regional grant, which is a larger grant given to centres of excellence and so on, and in the case of the large-scale sports infrastructure fund, clubs will, as a condition of drawdown, have to publish an access policy showing there is similar access for men and women. That is very positive and I am told it is already driving some change within certain areas. Any time I speak to women in certain sports, they tell me this is a problem. It has to be put to an end. We acknowledge that more facilities are needed and I am working on that with the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O'Brien. Last week in the Seanad, a Senator gave an example of a town with five GAA clubs, which the local camogie club is having difficulty accessing. The Government is expected to provide a solution in situations like that. Perhaps the Government is responsible for doing so but, in the first instance, one of the local clubs, which presumably are State-funded, should be providing access. That is what we are trying to drive through via the sports capital programme. I expect it to be a successful policy. Like everything else, it is not designed to punish but to drive change, and I think it will do so. The evidence from the feedback we are getting is that it is already driving change.