Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In my initial enthusiasm, I may have misplaced the decimal point in my first contribution.

In the next round, we should consider looking at issues of sustainability in the applications. The Minister of State might say that of course I would say that, but if we manage to turn around an energy line within a club in terms of funding, if we turn that from an outgoing to an incoming, that means they will have more money to spend on their pitches, equipment and community-building facets and, of course, it will help us to meet our climate goals. It is something we should be looking at. If a club is putting in floodlights or if it currently has floodlights, we should consider how can we move that to a lower-energy light-emitting diode, LED, system. We should look at whether clubs can put solar panels on their roofs in order that the heating of water happens through the power of sunlight rather than affecting their bottom line. That would allow them to spend their money on so many other things.

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