Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I would like to fund everybody. Unfortunately, budgets have contracted somewhat. It is a matter for the Irish Sports Council to provide funding to as many bodies as it can.

The taxpayer has, rightly, provided huge resources to the three major sporting bodies, particularly in Croke Park, Lansdowne Road and Thomond Park. That has allowed those bodies to generate enormous profits. They have the ability to generate substantial sums of money while many other organisations do not have that facility. I pose this question. As the generosity of the taxpayer has provided so much money to those bodies, could they, perhaps, look to this matter? The GAA, for example, has stated publicly that it is, and wishes to remain, primarily responsible for player welfare. As Deputy O'Mahony has said, this is a very important issue of player welfare. There is a challenge here for the organisation to respond to the extraordinarily different economic circumstances in which we find ourselves.

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