Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann: recognises that:

— football, the "beautiful game", is the most popular sport in the world, and the number one participation team sport in Ireland with 220,000 people playing for Irish clubs and schools, but Ireland has historically never invested in our domestic league, and exported our best players abroad;

— football has traditionally been a working-class game in Ireland, but has suffered over the last 100 years from poor leadership and chronic underinvestment;

— football was excluded from many primary and secondary schools before 1971, limiting its potential for growth, but is one of the best ways to build community cohesion and integration; and

— significant investment is needed in all sports to deliver new facilities and gender equality with a dedicated focus on changing facilities for women and girls, combined with access to playing pitches, not just for those playing football, but also in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and other sports;

notes that:

— Ireland's football facilities have fallen behind our European counterparts and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) have outlined a 15-year plan that needs an investment of €863 million over 15 years across 2,500 projects, including:

— €426 million for grassroots;

— €390 million for League of Ireland; and

— €47 million for international;

— the Irish team will compete in the Women's World Cup this summer in Australia for the first time, and there has been a surge of interest from women and girls in the sport, but major gender equality issues remain;

— attendances at League of Ireland Premier Division games have increased by 23 per cent over the last year, with an average attendance of 3,430 compared to 2,784 in June 2022;

— 55 per cent of clubs in Ireland do not own their facilities and rely on leases, with half of these for 15 years or less, while about a quarter have leases of less than one year, resulting in financial uncertainty and instability, and exclusion from Government funding streams;

— Ireland has a deficit of approximately 1,000 full size grass pitches, needs far more all-weather pitches to meet demand, and there are not enough facilities to cater for everyone, especially women and girls, with 38 per cent of clubs not able to offer female-friendly toilets at all; and

— football has a strong record of inclusion, engaging those from marginalised and disadvantaged communities, new Irish and migrant players, those from different ethnicities and those with disabilities, building community cohesion and integration;

further notes that:

— Irish football has been historically mismanaged, but through grassroot campaigns, progress in the League of Ireland, and through the FAI's facility investment vision and strategy, the potential for a new future is clear and achievable with investment;

— between 20 and 30 per cent of bets placed in Ireland are on football and a 1 per cent increase in the betting tax would raise €50 million a year providing a dedicated investment stream to invest in football, and other sporting codes;

— football has weak linkages with the education system, and many professional players in the League of Ireland have only a Junior Certificate qualification, but the transition year football and fitness course in Fingal has been successful over a number of years, it will be expanded to girls from August, and ensures players retain a strong link within the education system; and

— Brexit has impacted on the development of Irish football with far more young players remaining in Irish clubs and academies, as they cannot join an English team until they turn 18 years of age;

recalls that:

— in 2017 the Irish international women's team had to resort to industrial action to ensure they received adequate support; and

— it is seven years since the international men's team last qualified for a major international tournament at the European Football Championship in 2016, and 21 years since our last participation in the men's World Cup; and

calls for:

— the Government to give it's full backing to the FAI report on facility investment with a comprehensive State backed investment programme to develop the domestic football game covering grassroots, the League of Ireland and international teams;

— an increase in the Betting Levy to 3 per cent in Budget 2024, with the proceeds to fund domestic football facilities, and other sports:

— with a specific commitment to addressing gender equality access issues to changing facilities and pitches; and

— a commitment to shared community playing facilities for all towns with a population greater than 5,000;

— a review of the Sports Capital and Equipment Programme grant;

— recognition by the Government that football is one of the greatest tools available to support integration of new communities, participation for those with disabilities, and gender equality in sport;

— a programme that ensures our players can forge careers in Ireland, including centralised contracts for young women and men that would support them to stay in the game in Ireland for a minimum of three years, and education scholarships to build links between the League of Ireland and third-level educational institutes;

— the expansion of football as a transition year subject countrywide, through the development of a football academy structure;

— the League of Ireland clubs to get a portion of broadcast revenues, and a programme for national promotion of the game;

— Government supports for the potential of an all-island league;

— support for the development of a national football museum; and

— the ambition for Ireland to develop one of the best women's and men's leagues in the world.

Football is Ireland. The story of Irish football is the story of Ireland. It is a game that has traditionally been despised by official Ireland but loved by Irish people. It is a game categorised by underinvestment and poor administration but still a game that has lifted this nation like no other. The reasons for its shortcomings have always been rooted in class. Football is Ireland is at an historic moment. The League of Ireland is experiencing sell-out crowds, the women's league has turned semi-professional and our women's team plays in the World Cup next week, only six years since having to threaten strike action. The FAI has produced a groundbreaking report into the infrastructural deficit in the game that the Labour Party demands Government support for, because football is Ireland.

The Irish Football Association was founded in 1880. By 1905, the GAA had imposed its famous ban on foreign games. Football was the garrison game, the English game. In a 1932 debate in this House regarding the imposition of an entertainment levy on football, from which the GAA was exempted, Deputy Seán F. Gibbons stated: "It must have been a great revelation to the Soccer and Rugby people who visited Croke Park on the occasion of the last all-Ireland final, when they saw revealed to them the heart of Ireland for the first time." Those words were spoken in 1932. That religiosity of the Gaelic codes may still resonate with some people today, but I proudly repeat that football is Ireland. The seminal weekend in the history of the Labour movement, namely, the 1913 Lock-out and the baton charge on O'Connell Street, was all sparked by a riot at a game involving Shelbourne and Bohemians in Ringsend. That was because football is Ireland. In 1914, Ireland won the British Home Championship with a team captained by Patrick O'Connell, who later managed Barcelona. The team also included a Dublin All-Ireland Football Championship winner, Val Harris, and a Lithuanian refugee, Louis Bookman. Mr. Bookman was a refugee, because football is Ireland. The War of Independence saw activism on the part of footballers like Todd Andrews, Oscar Traynor and Sam Robinson, who took part in the 1920 Bloody Sunday assassinations. His cousin, William Perry Robinson, was shot dead in Croke Park later that afternoon. Sam later played international soccer for Ireland and his great grand-daughter, Aoife Robinson, plays for Bohemians. She recently cut through the anti-immigrant narrative online by posting her Refugees Welcome Bohemians shirt, because she knows that football is Ireland.

The first player to score in Dalymount Park, Harold Sloan, died in the First World War, because football is Ireland. Football is partitioned because football is Ireland. Football has been dogged with infighting and mismanagement because football is Ireland. Football people were brutalised in school because football is Ireland. Eoin Hand hid his face in underage team photos, lest it give cause for another beating from his bigoted Christian Brother teacher. Liam Brady chose to play for the Ireland youth team rather than his school Gaelic football team and was told not to return to school. John Giles said that when he left school he thought he was not Irish because he was told he was not Irish and that he was only a corner boy going up to Dalymount Park. Football was educationally homeless because of those teaching religious orders that felt that football was beneath them and that brutalised anybody caught playing what one Christian Brother termed "Peil Luther". In 1938, the President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde, was stripped of his role as patron of the GAA for attending a soccer international.

What of those special moments in those early days? I mention the first Irish team in 1924, which flew the Irish flag when we took our place among the nations of the Earth because football is Ireland. When ex-IRA man Tom Farquharson from Dublin won the FA Cup in England with Cardiff City in 1927, he became known as the penalty king. He saved so many penalties that the rule was changed for goalkeepers to stay on their line. Another IRA man, Jimmy Dunne, beat every goal-scoring record imaginable in England and then refused to perform the Nazi salute when captaining Ireland in Bremen in 1939. He screamed down the line at Irish team-mates who had their hands aloft: "Remember Aughrim, Remember 1916". That was because football is Ireland.

There were dark days too. Con Martin refused his 1941 GAA Leinster Football Championship medal because he was a soccer player. Belfast Celtic folded as a club in the aftermath of a sectarian riot in December 1948. The Archbishop of Dublin tried to cancel a soccer international against communist Yugoslavia in 1955 but a Member of this House, Oscar Traynor, stood firm. He was a Minister and president of the FAI and he would not bow to the pressure from the Catholic hierarchy to interfere in the game he loved so much because football is Ireland. When Liam Whelan of Manchester United died in the Munich air disaster of 1958, they said it was the biggest funeral in Glasnevin since that of Michael Collins, because football is Ireland.

Our teams, filled with those of our nation born overseas, including Shay Brennan in 1965, have been generations of footballers who have given expression to their Irishness by wearing the green. Yet it was us, those who were born here, who questioned their Irish identity because of their accents or unfamiliarity with the national anthem. These children of Irish communities in the UK or America who were forced to leave this country, returned to proudly wear the shamrock on their chests, because football is Ireland. The story of Shay Brennan, the late Alan McLoughlin, Courtney Brosnan and Sinead Farrelly is the story of Ireland.

I mention the story of the black Irish, from Ray Keogh, raised in a mother and baby home, the first black League of Ireland player, who played on the Drumcondra side that beat Bayern Munich. This is a legacy built on by Chris Hughton and then by three of the back four who held the Italians at bay in New Jersey in the 1994 World Cup. All three were black Irishmen. This is a true representation of the Irish nation. Today, our under-15 team is showered with racist abuse online, Cyrus Christie has spoken of the disgusting comments he hears and our under-21 team walked off the pitch because of racist abuse. With all of that poison in our country in recent years, our senior side, led by John Egan, took the knee in the spirit of Jimmy Dunne, to a chorus of boos in Hungary, but we could never have been more proud of them because football is Ireland. What an incredible role model Savannah McCarthy is as she proudly speaks of her Traveller heritage when representing her country. Football remains one of the most effective anti-racism, anti-poverty and anti-addiction tools we have. Listen to the words of Sherriff Street's Olivia O'Toole. She has 130 caps and 54 goals for Ireland. She saw at first hand how heroine was ripping her community apart in the 1980s and 1990s. She said:

When I was around 13, my sister would have been 16 or 17, and I could see her disintegrating before my eyes because of drugs ... If I'd picked the wrong path, I wouldn't be speaking to you today. Many of my friends who went the other way are dead now.

Olivia had football.

As a country, we cannot forget those moments that united us, including when Ray Houghton put the ball in the English net, when the nation held its breath and when the ball left the toe of Amber Barrett. I mention those family moments, like when a ten-year old boy plagues his dad to bring him to an Ireland international, even though his Christian-Brother-educated father was deeply suspicious of football. However, when Liam Brady's shot hit the net against Brazil in 1987, my first ever game, I turned to my dad and he was on his feet with his arms in the air because football is Ireland.

We will only achieve this again if we invest. There is a clear and obvious link between the success of this game and the amount that politics cares. Historically, politics has not cared enough and the FAI made that easy in the past but we have a new dawn. The time for photo opportunities is over and it is time for cold hard cash. The FAI report spells it out; including the lack of basic facilities for young players, especially girls. Lisa Fallon described so well at our Oireachtas briefing last month how every girl in Ireland knows the skill of changing her jersey in the open air. That is just not good enough. It is not good enough that so many of our League of Ireland grounds are crying our for redevelopment. How will we support these young players to stay in our system until they are 18 because access to the UK has been closed off? Some 18 of the 20 players on the under-17 squad are with Irish clubs. Are we supporting them in every way that we can? Why are we losing every talented girl from the League of Ireland as soon as they turn 18? Why can we not have the vision to create a pathway for them to play professionally in a domestic league and live out their dreams here? Some 12 years ago, 70% of the Irish women's team played in the League of Ireland, but only two of the squad who have gone to the World Cup in Australia play domestically now. Centralised contracts should surely be part of the discussion. They suffer from short-term contracts, poor facilities and a lack of basic respect for their talents. This is a game locked out of so many schools and it is not good enough any more. Irish football people are finally saying that enough is enough.

We need to support the FAI report. Funding of €862 million over 15 years is nothing compared with the joy this game gives to thousands across the country.

Children, players, coaches, fans, so many of us who will endure the inevitable misery defeat can bring because of the hope for that golden moment, the explosion of joy, the sweetness of victory against the odds. We stand alone as a footballing nation. Maybe we are the only ones who think that Wes Hoolahan is a god, Ronaldo is a cod and Stephanie Roche was robbed for the goal of the year. Maybe we alone can tell a good player from a great player. Football is Ireland. It inspires, it lifts, it binds and it empowers. It needs politics to step up to respect and fund it. Jack Charlton died three years ago this week. In his immortal words, we intend to keep the Minister under pressure because football is Ireland.

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