Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am going to focus on the on-the-ground issues affecting the ordinary local sports club, irrespective of the sport. First, what discussions have taken place on insurance rebates in respect of public liability insurance pertaining to accidents of players who play every year as club members and so on? There should be a rebate from the insurance companies. The Department should insist on it.

Second, we need to move forward fast regarding juvenile sports. The summer is here and the children will all be off school. They have been off school for a long time but it is vital that we ascertain whether children transmit Covid-19. There seems to be some evidence that they do not. Can we get the children back playing real matches, with ten, 11 or 12 players, as soon as possible and proceed from there?

My third point is on club sport. The pitches of many clubs, including football and hurling clubs but also other clubs involved in such outdoor sports, have quite big perimeters. We need clear guidelines to the effect that if people stay apart – they are fantastic at this in the local communities – matches can be run locally with people in attendance. At many club grounds around the country there would be no problem putting barriers 2 m or 3 m wide around the pitch to allow spectators to attend. Let us be honest about it: sports, particularly local sports, as in two clubs playing in Kerry, are not the same without spectators.

Will there be testing of players? I do not know if the virus can be transmitted in the type of close contact a person might have in a football match where a person might bump another person for a second or two. We need to test frequently and very frequently at the beginning.

Has consideration been given by the Government to mass events and particularly the funding of temperature testing at the stiles in a number of key grounds around the country? This is so when a crowd goes in there would be a temperature check and if anybody had an elevated temperature, he or she could be picked out. This could be done where we take 20,000 or 30,000 people into the very big grounds we have like the Aviva Stadium, Croke Park and so on. That might allow us to move to that phase a bit earlier.

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