Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

I should say that the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, sends his apologies. He is on his way to Brussels for a meeting of European sports Ministers.

In fairness to the Government, we do not merely talk about reducing the number of State agencies, we have actually done it. Coaching Ireland has been merged into the Sports Council, Dublin Tourism into Fáilte Ireland, and, as the Deputy knows, today there will be a reconfiguration of Shannon Development.

The point Deputy Dooley makes is absolutely correct. Too often in the past grants were given to sports clubs and local authorities on an ad hoc basis. Often two clubs with very good facilities may be close to one another while down the road in another locality there are no facilities. In part, this was historic because in the past clubs were not prepared to share facilities or open up their grounds to other codes. In newly developed areas that is less of a problem because, by and large, when new schools are built they incorporate a community centre with sports facilities alongside which are open to the entire community. It is hard to retrofit that into more established areas but we are doing two things to drive it. The first is the national sports facility strategy which is currently under consideration by the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, and me and is due to be published in the coming weeks. The second is the criteria for the current round of sports capital grants which give additional points to applicants who are willing to open up their grounds or facilities to more than one user.

See this speech in context