Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. Sport Ireland, on behalf of the Government, is engaging with all sporting organisations on our priority to maximise female participation and support our female athletes at high-performance and grassroots levels. On the sports capital programme, the Minister and I have directly prioritised clubs that are promoting female participation at grassroots level. That is central and new in this sports capital round.

With regard to women in sport funding, we have announced increases for the sporting organisations, which will be funded by Sport Ireland. That will be a two-year funding cycle and was announced earlier this year. We regularly engage with all sporting organisations about their participation and performance. Sport Ireland does that on behalf of the Government. We will certainly reflect on what the Deputy has outlined. We were all disappointed that we did not qualify for the Rugby World Cup. There has been great growth in female participation in grassroots rugby and we want to see that maximised in the coming years. We will certainly reflect that in our engagements with the union.

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