Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fundamentally agree with the Minister of State. I am not necessarily talking about funding gaps; I am concerned with capacity gaps. The volunteers simply are not there and numbers coming out of clubs have not been there. Clubs, to a large extent, have been dormant for a considerable time.

I will tease out something he referred to regarding the influence of sports capital grants, particularly on involvement in and encouragement of women's sports. I would be interested to know what engagement, either through the sports capital programme or more generally, he and the Minister are having with the IRFU on its review of the women's game, the failure to qualify for the Rugby World Cup and the fact that the union has not met its targets. Quite frankly, the IRFU is failing female participants in the sport.

See this speech in context