Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

Very practical issues have been raised by Deputies relating to insurance, leases and how all this can be dealt with. I will ask the sports facility strategy group through the national audit of local sports facilities that is under way to examine those issues.

As we invest heavily in bricks and mortar, which we have done very substantially for ten years, we must also continue to invest in and examine the extent to which we need to invest in the software side of it, as opposed to the hardware side. We can have many fine bricks and mortar projects but we need to bring on the people, including the professional support and volunteer background people, who will give us the athletes and performers. We must ensure we maintain a balance between investment in what I call the hardware side of sport and the software side. We must not get this too far out of balance or we will regret it.

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