Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Minister of State's reply. I do not want to labour the point but we need to move away from the sports capital grant scheme. We need to move to national sports facilities. In 2012, the Government developed a draft sports facility strategy which was supported by the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI. A circular was sent to all local authorities to try to develop the strategy. Has the Government completely ruled out a national sports strategy or is it open to developing one?

In order to harness the joy around Irish football, in particular women's football, we need to ring-fence significant funding for the FAI. We need to set up a task force within the FAI and the Government to ensure that funding is directed at the development of women's sport, including women's football, to benefit from the team's World Cup participation.

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