Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

Surely that would not really constitute a thorough audit of this country's sporting facilities. It is critically important that all such facilities, including the facilities I have mentioned like walkways and canals, should be covered by a broad audit. Will there be an audit of the sporting facilities in our primary and post-primary schools? I recently completed a survey of all the primary schools here which found that just 23% of them have sports halls. There is a major issue here. Without a sports hall in the school, young children cannot obtain the benefits of exercise and teachers cannot carry out proper programmes in the school. The audit should be all embracing. Every facility in the country should be audited and both primary and post-primary schools should be included.

Will the local sports partnerships be involved in the audit? The local sports partnership in County Kerry carried out such an audit on the schools in the county. The audit showed that 75% of the schools in Kerry do not have a PE hall on their grounds, in spite of all the money that has been spent in the county.

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