Frank Feighan (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy Ó Ríordáin and the Labour Party for bringing this motion forward and I thank Members for coming here today. As a former secretary of Boyle Celtic, and the first to get a grant from the lotto of £20,000 for the County Roscommon District League in 1987, I can say that this a most important motion. Soccer has come out of the doldrums since the ban. I remember going to the first game following the lifting of the ban in 1971, when two Sligo Rovers players, Gerry Mitchell and David Pugh, lined out for Sligo GAA, with Tony Fagan on the bench.

It was the first time after that ban that they played for Sligo against Roscommon in the Connacht semi-final, which really brought soccer out of the doldrums.

I ran a double-decker bus to Germany in 1988. It was a great day. Twenty-two of us went. It was the first time it brought great confidence and great hope to our country. They say it started the Celtic tiger.

As a former Minister of State, I believe soccer needed to get its act together and is getting its act together. It needs to be like the GAA. There are so many young women and so many young men around the country. The one thing Governments and Ministers want is good governance and data. If we have that, there is loads of money out there. I wish the proposers of the motion every success.

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