Dáil debates

Thursday, 29 September 2022

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

Sport and Recreational Development

11:20 am

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

A fundamental aim of the national sports policy is to increase the level of participation across the population, with a specific focus on less represented groups, including women and girls.

In May 2022, my Department held a youth stakeholder forum on sport at which we gathered young people together to identify the barriers keeping them from sport and to gain insight into how those barriers could be addressed. A report on that forum has been drafted and will help inform and direct the measures my Department takes to address youth participation in sport.

In May 2021 Sport Ireland published its Participation Plan 2021-2024. Sport Ireland is now undertaking several initiatives under that plan for children and young people, which will be delivered through local sports partnerships, national governing bodies and other partners.

In 2021 Sport Ireland launched the research report, Adolescent Girls Get Active. Following on from the report, Sport Ireland created a new funding strand through dormant accounts funding to support local sports partnerships in the creation of physical activity programmes targeting teenage girls.

Sport Ireland is working to establish a brand identity for teenage girls' programmes rolled out by local sports partnerships and governing bodies. Sport Ireland is also tendering for the roll-out of a communication and activation campaign targeting inactive teenage girls. This will be the first time a dedicated national physical activity campaign has ever been created for this target group and highlights the commitment of Sport Ireland and the Government to trying to motivate teenage girls to be more active.

We know from the research that a participation gap arises at this time in women's and girls' lives and that this has an impact on participation for many years, so we are trying to focus initiatives on that. We are committed to our capital programmes supporting clubs that embrace female participation in sport and we are trying to build on that in the years to come.

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