Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Office of the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this matter. There is an obesity epidemic sweeping the country at the moment. According to the national obesity task force report, 300,000 children are overweight or obese and this is growing by 10,000 annually.

In a survey which I carried out in 2005 in 1,400 primary schools, I discovered that only 23% of the schools had a sports hall and their physical education programmes were severely curtailed because of the lack of indoor facilities. Many schools were unable to do the minimum amount of physical activity because of the lack of an indoor facility or even an outdoor facility. There are genuine concerns about young children being injured in school yards, which raises the question of liability.

Apart from our schools, there is a cohort of children of pre-school age who need play, which can clearly also be relevant to children of school age. The provision of playgrounds in communities across the country is essential. There is no national scheme on this issue.

I will refer in particular to Kerry County Council, which has been proactive in addressing the issue of public play provision for children. In February 2003, Kerry was one of the first local authorities to launch a countywide policy on the development and management of public playgrounds. I was on the relevant committee at that time.

Since the policy, Developing Play in Kerry, was launched, an internal play appraisal team has been established to ensure that all decisions about play are compliant with the policy. This has provided a more centralised and co-ordinated approach to the development and management of outdoor playground areas. A guideline booklet entitled An Spraoi has been produced by Kerry County Council to assist community groups interested in developing outdoor public playground areas. It outlines eight basic steps, and once communities follow these steps, they can apply to Kerry County Council for insurance cover.

All applications are assessed by the play appraisal team. To date, the play appraisal team has approved nine projects for insurance cover. These are located in Ballybunion, Cahirciveen, Waterville, Killorglin, Sneem, Clohane, Ballyheigue, Fenit and Rossbeigh. Four of these projects are completed and two are at an early stage of construction. The remaining three have not started construction due to lack of funding. These projects are proposed for Fenit, Sneem and Rossbeigh, all of which have or intend to raise 20% of the projected costs locally.

Considering the high capital costs associated with developing a play facility, where playgrounds can range from €90,000 to €350,000, high-impact funding targeted at a level which would allow a project to proceed must be provided. Small grants will not enable projects to proceed within Department timeframes. From a Kerry perspective, to enable these developments to proceed and be completed within the current year, I requested that a bloc grant of at least €200,000 be allocated to Kerry County Council.

The Minister is reviewing the grant allocation for last year as some of the grants were not taken up. The reason for this is that the grants were not high enough to ensure that communities could purchase equipment as it is so expensive. The communities have to make up remaining funds through fundraising, which they find difficult. Will there be a scheme this year and, if so, when will it be announced? The community of Fenit had to go to the bank to borrow money to buy the equipment which it had already ordered, and other communities will have to do the same. Many progressive and forward-looking communities that have taken the initiative to order equipment are left in limbo because no scheme is available from the Department and there is no immediate hope of funding from Kerry County Council. I hope the Minister of State can give me some good news.

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