Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To the best of my knowledge, the Minister of State has done a fair job in distributing lottery money among the different counties but there is a serious issue in Wexford as to where the money goes after it arrives. There is a lot of discontent that it does not seem to be a fair allocation at all times. For example, in 2012 soccer got less than 5% of the money and in 2014 it got 11%. According to an ESRI report on the social and economic value of sport in Ireland, soccer is the team sport with the highest level of participation in the country. Another report on sport and recreational exercise among adults aged 16 and over in Wexford-Wicklow, commissioned by the Irish Sports Council in conjunction with the ESRI, showed that soccer was the most popular sporting activity among over-16s in these counties. According to this report, 6.5% of all adults in this region would choose soccer compared to the combined uptake of Gaelic football and hurling, which weighs in at 4.9%. With regards solely to male participation, 11.9% choose soccer as opposed to 8.1% for Gaelic football and hurling combined.

All sport deserves more help than the Government can find money to give it. Every sport has a huge benefit to society and makes a huge difference to making things work and helping young people to develop in a good, healthy fashion. It is probably one of the best ways of all to fight obesity, which is growing at an astronomical rate in Ireland today. However, the playing field should be level. In Wexford we have an incredible soccer organisation. Our junior league is the second biggest in the country and we have one of the biggest schoolboy sections outside of Dublin. Women's soccer in Wexford is growing at an unprecedented rate and the Wexford women's youth team are the all-Ireland champions and will play in the champions' league this summer in Poland. The amount of young boys and the number of women involved in the sport every weekend is astronomical and from September to May there are approximately 170 games each weekend, an incredible figure. An allocation of less than 5% of the total money in 2012 and just 11% in 2014 compares poorly with how other sports have been dealt with.

I come from a soccer background and many clubs have contacted me looking for fairness. One club, Cloughbawn in Clonroche, which is a really deprived area, has applied every time but, despite having 18 teams, it has not received a penny. The amount of work they put in at local level is incredible but they have failed to get help. The Wexford league itself has looked for money on a few occasions but last year it was turned down because it did not submit a letter stating that it did not need planning permission for what it was doing, which was making pitches. The Gaelic club in the town received more money than all the soccer clubs put together without even owning the site for which it received its grant.

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