John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The amount of money allocated to the Sports Council for 2006 is the highest ever, at €40.9 million. Clearly, this gives greater scope to the Sports Council to fund various non-governmental organisations and bodies in the State. The Community Games is one example. The organisation has received the highest amount ever. It is also welcome that the organisation has been greatly facilitated by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the current Minister. In that context, a new contract for the use of Mosney was signed between Mosney Irish Holidays Limited and the Minister on 18 November 2004 to provide for the use of the facility at Mosney up to 5 June 2010. I greatly welcome that because this was one of the major concerns the organisation had when I was Minister in that Department. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and its various Ministers, including myself, have been as helpful as possible to the Community Games.

In the same way the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism has been hugely helpful to the organisation. Since 1999, the Irish Sports Council has funded the Community Games to the tune of €1,745,345. That is no mean achievement in the context of the funding that was available to the Sports Council over those years. The Sports Council decides how it will allocate its funding. I will bring to its attention what has been said by the Opposition Members today and see whether the council will, in its wisdom, decide to increase the funding even though the €250,000 for 2006 is the highest amount ever given. Some 500,000 youngsters are involved in the Community Games in any given year, which is a considerable number by any stretch of the imagination. I accept Deputy Deenihan's point that the games help to combat obesity and so on. The national Community Games are of immense importance. I acknowledge the role of Mr. Buggy, his officers, executive, volunteers and staff. Without the games, there is no question that Irish life and the children of the nation would be the poorer as a consequence.

I want the Community Games to continue to thrive and I want more young people involved in them. It is sometimes forgotten that some of our greatest sporting heroes began their sporting lives in the Community Games. Sportspersons like Sonia O'Sullivan, Eamon Coughlan, MichaelCarruth and Niall Quinn, to name but a few, started out with the Community Games. It is appropriate that we would continue to fund the games adequately.

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