Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

Over the past while we have invested almost €800 million into the type of facilities the Deputy suggests, into local small clubs, etc., for many different sports throughout the country. This has had a huge impact. The ESRI recently published a report which identified two areas in sport that need attention, young women and disadvantaged children. There is significant work to be done in these areas.

I commend local sports programmes such as those the FAI are running with local authorities. These are successful and worthwhile and are the type of programmes we need to do in all sports areas. While the focus of the questions today has been on major facilities, we should remember that if we build Abbottstown, which we need, Sweden has 22 such facilities. I will not mention what Germany, France and the UK have. We need such high-end facilities for all athletes to aspire to, whatever their sport or discipline and we should have them. This is the reason Abbotstown is very important——

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