Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)

I have a few comments in regard to sports as well, although I have a final comment to make in respect of arts. Multi-annual funding is one of the features of great importance, particularly for the Arts Council, in terms of being able to engage people, for example, for opera singing and so on. The council has to engage people, perhaps two years in advance, and it cannot do this without multi-annual funding. There is no word about this anywhere in the budget and it is something about which the council would like to have heard.

There is no national sports campus and no new local authority swimming pool. All of this has closed since 2000, so overall the Minister's comments would be appreciated in terms of what is happening with sport because, again, the budget is significantly down in terms of 2008 funding.

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