Alan Farrell (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for introducing the Bill. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

I acknowledge the role of sport in local communities. Every single community across the country has sporting organisations, be they GAA, soccer or, for example, in my town there is a very successful cricket team, which was recently promoted to the top flight. We have a proud sporting tradition across the nation.

As Deputy O’Mahony indicated, sport is of critical importance to Irish people. When an athlete is participating in a competition people around the country become interested and excited about their prospects. Recently, our success in soccer has not been wonderful but we are beginning to improve again. Irish people are very proud of their sporting traditions. It encourages us to be more positive about our outlook on life. In the height of the recession the soccer team had a couple of successful outings at European level. Such support buoys people up and gets others interested.

Sporting organisations are the backbone of many communities throughout the country and are largely financed by fund-raising in the local area. The fact that volunteering is so high in sport in Ireland shows the importance with which it is held by people from all backgrounds and all areas.

This ensures the development and implementation of sports policy is as effective as possible and it is of the utmost importance that we support volunteers in local communities in their actions to promote sports. I believe the Sport Ireland Bill 2014 will assist in this.

The Bill will provide for the establishment of Sport Ireland, which will replace the Irish Sports Council and the National Sports Development Authority. The merging of these bodies follows the core commitment made by the Government to do away with quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations, quangos. I am not fond of the word "quango". The aim is to do away with replicating boards and the amalgamation of these sporting bodies makes sense in terms of the development and implementation of policy. Bringing the responsibilities for the development and implementation of sports policy under one organisation is also a matter of common sense. I believe that having one organisation responsible for both aspects of sports policy will allow for a more integrated approach to these matters, which can only be beneficial for the future of sport in Ireland.

Section 7 outlines the functions of Sport Ireland and it is encouraging to note that among the organisation's functions is a focus on developing strategies for increasing participation in sport. It is of fundamental importance that we make sport more appealing, particularly to children and young people as a means of tackling the obesity crisis which is currently gripping a large proportion of the youth of Ireland.

On the issue of participation, I am particularly interested in the Football Association of Ireland, FAI, cricket and the two successful programmes spearheaded by the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, relating to sports capital. I congratulate the Minister of State on this success. Last Monday there was an interesting debate on Ireland's successful bid relating to Euro 2020 that will see the Aviva Stadium host four matches in the competition. It is great news for Dublin and presents a huge opportunity for tourism but it is also a chance to showcase the facilities at the Aviva Stadium, which are second to none. The successful bid allows us to focus on other aspects of the FAI, such as League of Ireland soccer, which is a personal interest of mine. I was involved with a League of Ireland club as a schoolboy and I volunteered with another club for a number of years when I was a councillor in Malahide. It was an exhilarating experience but, on the policy aspects facing Sport Ireland, the model currently in use is not sustainable. Many clubs have inferior facilities and there are only three or four proper stadia among 20-odd League of Ireland teams - the rest are starved of funds. Contributions to the league and prize money are insufficient to support the continued growth of clubs and they are being crippled. A club might qualify for European competition one year and find itself in the second tier of the domestic league the following year because it peaked and could not maintain the funding level.

I have an interest in the development of policy on cricket. Cricket is prominent in the north county of Dublin for a number of reasons and Ireland's participation in the world cup put cricket on the map here as a sport in which we might achieve success. Many Irish players play county cricket across the water in what is the equivalent of the soccer premier league. They are terrific ambassadors for the sport but most international matches in Ireland are held at Stormont because until recently there was no facility in the Republic to host such events. This changed due to development at Malahide Cricket Club but that only went halfway because a stadium must be set up at the club for each match of significance. England played there last summer, as the Minister knows, and some 11,000 or 12,000 people attended. It was a great event and a wonderful showcase for cricket and the policy of encouraging such games. England will return next year to give another opportunity to showcase the sport. I hope a core policy of Sport Ireland's cricket remit will be the development of the facility at Malahide to create the home of Irish cricket. Significant sums have already been invested there through the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

Regarding sports capital, clubs in Swords and my community have benefitted from a 1,506% increase in sports capital grants between 2012 and 2014. I double-checked that figure. The clubs will be delighted with that funding as it creates the opportunity for more children to become involved in sport and tackle the obesity issue that is prevalent. Unfortunately, computer games, television and phones tend to be the preferred sources of amusement for young people and it is important that we take the opportunity to develop policy that will get them off the sofa and out onto a football pitch or playing any other sport.

I hope that Sport Ireland will work to find an effective strategy that engages with young children, their parents and their teachers because schools present a great opportunity to focus the minds of young people on the activities they enjoy. A child need not be good at a sport to participate. We cannot tackle this without input from a wide section of society. It may involve promotion days at sports clubs or schools spearheading activities. Doing this will encourage children to become more active in terms of recreation and provide the next generation of elite athletes a chance to hone their skills. It will also give coaches an opportunity to find talented individuals at a young age and promote the development of particular skill-sets.

While we must place a large focus on ensuring we increase the number of children and young people involved in sport, we must also place a great deal of focus on engaging all other sectors of society. As we are inevitably going to start seeing the impact of an aging population in the coming years, we must take action now to ensure that our population has both the means and the information to live healthily and actively throughout life, not just during school and college. This is an issue on which Sport Ireland and the Minister could engage with the Department of Health in future, following the establishment of the organisation. Increasing the participation of all sections of society in sport as a means to keep active and healthy must be one of the core tenets of Sport Ireland.

The role of Sport Ireland in facilitating fair conduct and the elimination of doping in all sports is important. Any doping in sport is too much - not only does it give an unfair advantage but it is a health risk that must be tackled. I am encouraged to see the provisions in the Bill that ensure the statutory basis of an existing national anti-doping programme and the Irish anti-doping rules. It must be made clear that doping in sport is unacceptable, whether at a recreational or elite level. For this reason I hope that Sport Ireland mounts an education campaign on the dangers of doping, the negative health impacts and the risks of performance enhancing substances. This education programme must start at school because it is the ideal time and place to inform young people who participate in sport of these dangers. School is a place where a local club or a local sporting hero can talk to young people about the importance of staying healthy and staying clean, in terms of performance enhancing substances. I am a regular gym user and my gym does not have many weights but I have been in gyms where some individuals spend an hour or two working on heavy weights. Some people purchase nutritional supplements over the counter and online, some of which I am sure have very questionable ingredients.

There are massive side effects and it is not known what effect they may have on a person later in life. In certain gyms it is accepted that this occurs but it should not be accepted in our modern society and these supplements should be tested. I refer specifically to those one can buy online. One receives spam in one's Gmail or Eircom account for a performing enhancing supplement, whether for sport or other reasons, and unfortunately people buy them. Some of my local schools took the opportunity to bring in the Leinster rugby team when it was successful in the Heineken Cup a number of years ago. Schools also bring in local GAA clubs which have won a league to impress the youngsters.

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