John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

As Deputy Deenihan will be aware, one of the stated functions of the authority is to encourage and promote the use of the sports campus by people participating in sport at professional and amateur levels and by members of the public generally. In this context, the authority will encourage and promote the use of the campus by a wide variety of groups and this promotion will be targeted at both male and female sports people. I am reluctant to make a specific reference in legislation to any particular group as this could simply result in tokenism.

The new authority will be primarily concerned with developing and operating the campus of sports facilities at Abbotstown. It is to the Irish Sports Council, in consultation with the national governing bodies, that I would look to redress any imbalance that there may be with regard to participation in sport by any one group of potential users.

Deputies will be aware that the Government has taken tangible steps to encourage greater participation by women in sport. In the 2005 Estimates, the Government allocated €750,000 to the Irish Sports Council to promote the greater participation of women in sport. This was by way of a pilot endeavour, and in recognition of the effectiveness of the effort, the level of funding was increased in 2006 to €2.25 million.

I recognise the importance of attracting more women to participate in sport and have taken specific action to achieve this aim. However, I do not think it can be achieved by means of the amendment before us. I have made the encouragement of greater numbers of female participants in sport the responsibility of the Irish Sports Council. In that context, and at my request, the council made €250,000 available to the FAI to assist with that association's development plan with a view to ensuring that it attracts more women into the game of soccer. The association currently has 12,500 registered female members, although many more women play soccer on an informal basis. However, this pales into insignificance compared to the 450,000 males who play soccer in Ireland today.

We have the capacity to increase the number of women in sport and this will be achieved by virtue of the fact that since 1998 we have made a major investment in sports facilities across the country under the sports capital programme. Almost €458 million has been spent on providing facilities at 5,630 venues in every city, town, village and parish in Ireland. Gone, or at least going, are the days when women were turned off participating in field sports, for example, because there was no accommodation available in which to change. Gone are the days when women were discouraged from participating in sport because the major sports organisations considered their particular sports to be a male preserve. Gone, or going, are the days when women could expect to finish playing a given game and have no showers available to them.

We can encourage a greater level of female participation in sport by continuing in the direction in which the Government has moved. I will direct the Irish Sports Council to have regard to the use of the Abbotstown facilities as part of its remit to improve women's participation levels in sport.

Apart from the special initiative to which I have referred, various national governing bodies fund programmes, managed by the Irish Sports Council, which cater for both genders. Furthermore, in the selection of members of the authority, I will endeavour to ensure that the various strands of sports administrators are represented. For example, the current board of Campus and Stadium Ireland Development Limited has in its membership the chief executive of the Irish Sports Council. I consider that the national sports development authority should focus on developing the campus. As part of its modus operandi, I envisage that the authority will put in place a statement of strategy and I see that strategy statement as the more appropriate place for the authority to set out its approach to the various groups it will attempt to attract.

It appears that only 10% of females in Ireland regularly participate in sport or physical activity. I would be the first to acknowledge that this is woefully inadequate and that is why I have sought to put funding directly into encouraging women to participate in sport. It is my intention to continue with that approach. For these reasons, I do not accept the amendment.

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