Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)

I appreciate the points about the future programme of sports capital funding, the interaction between clubs and schools and so on. However, my key point is that facilities are already in existence that have been paid for by the taxpayer but access to them is not available. Very often they are closed at 6 p.m. when many clubs would love to avail of them. Basketball Ireland, for example, would love to have access to a number of facilities that are available for use, but not available to them. The facilities are in place, the buildings are there but access to them is not. We must examine ways in which to make such facilities more widely available.

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