Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

The most important area is outside the remit of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism. There is a serious deficit in schools. As Deputy Deenihan said, people must get involved at an early age and the schools are the appropriate forum. Deputy Deenihan's survey pointed out that schools suffer from a deficit of sport equipment, as have surveys by the GAA, the IRFU and the FAI. Given that schools are lucky to have the most basic PE hall, teachers view the PE curriculum as a joke, particularly the water safety aspect. I have heard that schools may practice water safety using a bench, without ever touching a pool. That is the biggest joke of all.

It is no wonder we go on to under-perform on the world stage, as witnessed by our poor medal haul in successive Olympic Games. In terms of Olympic achievements, Ireland continues to lag behind developed countries with a similar population as well as those with fewer resources. This is not the fault of the athletes who most recently went to Athens, did their best on the day and did Ireland proud. Given the lack of joined-up thinking between Departments such as Education and Science, Arts, Sport and Tourism, and Health and Children our rare successes have been achieved in spite of rather than because of a strategy. Otherwise, it would not be taking nigh on 50 years to honour Ronnie Delaney, for example.

Following on from the Olympic Games there was the same talk from the Taoiseach and the Minister about commitment to developing sport. At the same time schools are suffering from serious under-investment in physical education facilities. For four successive years the paltry grant of €600 to €1,200 for sports equipment in schools has been withheld. The Taoiseach has promised additional funding for sport. It is as well that schools should be targeted for a start, since survey after survey has shown that if children get involved in sport they are much more likely to continue this into adulthood. Again, I will call on the Department of Education and Science — not the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, he will be glad to hear — to increase this grant and to target funding into schools building projects. This might include lottery grants for individual primary and secondary schools or for projects involving links with local sports clubs. Sharing and clustering facilities in line with the integrated public partnership approach proposed by the Green Party would mean facilities could be open all day and run cost effectively for the benefit of the community. Schools in rural and urban areas could also benefit in terms of how extensions to existing facilities might operate. There are issues involved as regards security and management, but these could be dealt with later on.

Although there has been preliminary work on an audit of sports facilities which was promised in An Agreed Programme for Government, we are still waiting for it. We will not have such a countrywide audit by the time of the next general election, so we will not know who is taking part among the various social, economic and demographic groups. We do not have the data to allow for a more precise type of investment where it is most needed.

The message to the Minister is to work from the bottom up. We need to look at a beauty facility such as the Abbotstown sports campus, but we also need to look at long-term funding so that carded athletes can develop their abilities with reasonable financial security. We need to be able to identify top performers at an earlier age. That means the countrywide roll-out of local sports partnerships and development through the schools system. The high performance strategy identified the need to establish clear pathways to the top, according to the Irish Sports Council. Those support structures will not be available unless there is investment in the schools system. The Department of Education and Science should take over that aspect of sport for young people or the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism should be made totally responsible for the provision of facilities in schools. A gap there needs to be addressed.

I mentioned earlier that Government funding had gone to the dogs. It certainly has, with some 37% of the Department's sport funding going to the horse and greyhound industries. In response to my raising the issue before, the Minister made a few jokes, which was fair enough. However, he made no comment on the €16 million that Coolmore Stud, for example, was able to spend on a horse which will reap it a good deal of money in the long-term. He did not mention, either, that the horse and greyhound industries are based on gambling and to a lesser extent, alcohol. These are pursuits I do not intend to criticise in their own right, but they are the wrong areas to fund while we are talking about obesity and trying to get people involved in sports. Perhaps the horse and greyhound funding, after 2008, should be abolished and real investment could be put into people instead. We are looking towards the 2012 Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games where, as the Minister has said, there are opportunities to promote Ireland as a high technology centre. We will not have high-tech well-developed athletes competing in that, however, or young people reaching their sporting potential, because they will not have had the funding. If one does not have the proper play areas and facilities one cannot get involved in sports. We have seen the romantic dream in a particular television programme where an individual goes to Mongolia or Brazil on behalf of someone who is working here — I cannot recall the name of the programme. One sees the children out in the dirt tracks kicking ball. There are very few sports in which a ball can just be kicked around and people develop into top class athletes. Most of them need facilities. In this context, if the Minister will not reduce the funding for the horse and greyhound industries, can he at least, in conjunction with his colleagues in the Departments of Education and Science and Health and Children, look at increasing funding for sport and people? That means starting from the bottom and providing facilities that people need.

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