John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The Sports Council is neither morally bankrupt nor corrupt. The council is involved in so far as it can be in increasing children's participation in sport. It operates Buntús, which is assisted by the commercial sector, as the Deputy pointed out. I do not know the modalities or methodologies of the situation, but the Buntús programme has been successful.

We are trying to increase the number of children participating in sport because society has a problem in terms of obesity and its health-related difficulties. While we use as much of our funding as we can, we are involved with the commercial sector where feasible through the sports council to achieve higher participation rates. Not for a moment do I believe the council would become involved in any corrupt or immoral practice.

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