Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I have no major difficulty with the Bill. It is mainly a technical Bill to pull organisations together and merging them into one. I have a few questions. Will there be a cap on the new CEO's wages? The point was made here, quite correctly, that new jobs would be lost and wages would be at the level they should be. I hope there will be no JobBridge jobs in this area and that these will be full jobs, permanent and with decent conditions.

I would be interested to know whether there is a cut in the funding between the two organisations now being merged into one. I am also a little concerned about section 9, which was raised already and which relates to consultants and advisers. Can the new body pay for consultants and advisers only with funding it raises? Could it use State funding to employ consultant and advisers or would the body itself have to raise the funding for it?

I will make a few general points. Deputy Wallace made a number of profound points on the role of the drinks industry in sport. On sports allocations, particularly for younger people who are picked to play for Ireland, for instance, in European championships or world championships, I recently had two cases. First, a young lad in Taekwondo in Tallaght was seeking support to raise money to send him to championships in Japan and there was no funding available to help him travel there. Then a young girl from Drimnagh who was going to the European Basketball Championship that was held on 29 July last informed me that she had to pay for the new kit to represent her country, and she also had to raise €3,500 to get herself there. If we want to encourage our young people into the national campus and develop them into good athletes for both themselves and to represent their country and their community, we need to look at that level of promotion. They should be eager and enthusiastic rather than have to come with a begging bowl to the public and conduct fund-raisers such as a quiz.

I put down a parliamentary question on this matter and was informed the various sporting governing bodies and organisations receive funding which they pass down to the athletes. We need to use that money properly to support young athletes representing our country. It is fine for those who can afford to support their children through a sport but it is difficult for those parents who cannot. The reply to my parliamentary question stated taekwondo was part of the higher performance plan but basketball was not. We need to re-examine the range of sports that are included in this support and how their governing bodies are transparent in showing where the funding goes.

Will the Minister examine how lottery funds are distributed for supporting sport in the UK? While I accept it has a much larger fund, the sporting organisations there are able to encourage young people to partake in national sporting events and provide funding for community-based sporting facilities. It is phenomenal. It appears, however, that the same effort is not put into allocating supports here in our communities. The UK lottery finding gets to sporting organisations on the ground in communities, not at the top to golf clubs, for example, and encourages young people to participate.

A local football club in my constituency has tried three times to get an AstroTurf pitch put into Brickfields Park. It has come up against brick walls, red tape and the local authority not being forthcoming in explaining how the club should apply for a capital sports grant. A timely notice should be sent to all clubs applying for capital sports grants by local authorities, as well as information as to what viability plans they need to put in their applications. Many areas are losing out because they do not have the right personnel such as accountants to assist them in putting through their applications.

There are 800,000 young people involved in sports. I have played basketball, camogie, volleyball, as well as partaking in swimming and running. This is a great environment to grow up in and the friendships one makes in playing sports are bound for life. I am still close to people I played sports with when I was 12 and 13. Ties made when playing sport are crucial to young people’s development. We need to examine how we nurture young people getting involved in sport, particularly on the national stage. We must also encourage sporting organisations such as the Homeless Street Leagues, as well as those that support cross-community and racial integration and closing the gender equality gap, as Deputy McLellan mentioned.

I will be supporting this Bill.

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