Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the presence in the Public Gallery of Tegan Lyons, Sophia King, Lexi King and Amelia Kee from Mallow United. I am glad they are here because their achievements to date have been exceptional. They are accompanied by Paul Lyons and Philip King. They have won division 1 of the Cork Women's and Schoolgirls Soccer League. They have won the Denise McArdle Cup. They have won the Schoolgirls Football Association regional cup. They have reached the semi-final of the under-12 girls' national cup, when they were defeated by Lucan. On their way to the semi-final, however, they won three rounds to get out of Cork and then beat Dunboyne, from Meath, Curracloe, from Wexford, and Killavilla, from Tipperary, although Deputy Kelly tells me that is an Offaly team. We will see. In total they have played 30 games all season and their only defeat was to Lucan.

The reason I speak for these four young women is that I now have something tangible I can grasp, and that is the FAI's Facility Investment Vision and Strategy. It is an excellent report. It gives us, as public representatives, something tangible to grapple with. I have no doubt but that the Minister's office, that the Minister, Deputy Martin, and the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, if they have not already done so, will engage with the FAI on the contents of the report. The Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, is nodding assent, so that process has started. That is the key template.

I will speak only for women and girls today because this is about facilities, and the Minister articulated that in her speech. What are we about today? We are about wanting people like Tegan, Sophia, Lexi and Amelia to continue on their journey through the game of football, and we do not want any impediments put in their way. Key to that is ensuring that there are facilities for them. The report is excellent in that it speaks to what the grassroots need. It refers to the ground ownership challenge, which Deputy Howlin spoke about earlier, where there are clear metrics. The report states: "27% of clubs have leases for less than one year meaning financial uncertainty and instability." It refers to the lack of overall capacity and states:

31% of clubs are required to operate out of secondary facilities in order to meet the required pitch demand for training and matches. Some clubs, particularly those which are well-structured and organised to grow our game ..., are struggling to meet demand from local communities.

It refers to grass pitch availability and states: "Versus UEFA industry standard (per capital), Ireland is short of circa 1,000 full-size grass pitches." It refers to the challenges women and girls face and states that there is, "A lack of basic female-friendly facilities to cater for the 34k women and girls currently playing and the 50k more that will be playing by 2026", and we know that is only going to keep going upwards.

Today I draw a link between Tegan, Sophia, Lexi, Amelia and the thousands of girls and young women like them because we want to ensure that they have the basic facilities and that the investments are made by the Government in those basic facilities. I acknowledge the amount of funding the Government has expended to date in respect of facilities through the sports capital programme and so on.

However, if we can continue to engage on this report, let it be the template. Let us ensure there is a future and that young women and girls in particular continue in the game. That is always the greatest challenge. These women are playing at under-12 level and we want them to continue right through to adulthood. Part of this motion is essentially about those young women.

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