Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late. I was outside the gates of Leinster House at a protest on the cost of living. I thank the Labour Party for bringing forward this important motion.

I am very grateful to grassroots football for the role it played in my life, instilling certain discipline, experience and education about the importance of working together with others, team discipline, comradeship, being part of a community and just having fun and mixing with people from all sorts of background. I thank the many clubs I played for in Dún Laoghaire.

They are Cabinteely, which had only just started out then but which has gone on to much bigger and better things; St. Joseph's Boys, for whom I played for many years; Ballybrack FC; St. Joseph's Boys in Glasthule; Dunedin; and UCD. That is probably not the full list; there have been many clubs. I owe every single one of those clubs a great debt, particularly for what the unpaid volunteers did.

The number of volunteers outlined in the FAI report is just extraordinary, with 45,000 people registered as volunteers. These individuals are out working with young people for absolutely no personal gain. They are mostly inspired by the belief that if we do not give young people something positive to do, they can end up getting into trouble. However, if young people learn how to play football and engage in a positive team sport, that will stand to them for the rest of their lives. There is absolutely no doubt that is true. Setting aside that, we all think it is important that the Irish team or League of Ireland teams do well, and we celebrate the fact that some players may make it to higher levels of football in the English premiership, other English leagues or internationally. For what it does for every single young person who gets involved in grassroots football and for communities, there should be no end of thanks to all of those volunteers for what they do. They make a contribution, particularly to working class and disadvantaged communities, to the integration and cohesion of communities and to teaching people skills that will stand to them for the rest of their lives.

The problem is that successive Governments have failed to make the necessary investment. For every one of the teams I mentioned, and I could mention a few others, the question of facilities or lack of them has always been an issue. The lack of pitches, changing rooms, showers and financial resources has always been a major issue. It is even more so now when there is an absolute explosion of interest in grassroots soccer, certainly in my area. Others have testified to this. Obviously, the flourishing of women's and girl's soccer is absolutely extraordinary, but it is not even remotely closely matched with the level of support, investment, resources and facilities necessary to accommodate teams and ensure that they flourish and reach their capacity.

I will name-check a few clubs in my area in that regard. I recommend that the Minister watch "The Story of Pearse Rovers". Pearse Rovers Football Club was set up in the 1950s. The club is based in Sallynoggin, which is a working class area. Paul McGrath, one of our greatest footballers, started out with Pearse Rovers. To this day, the club has never had decent facilities. For years, it was literally operating out of a tin can in Sallynoggin Park. I got changed in there when playing against Pearse Rovers as a young person. The club is still fighting to have its own dedicated facility. It has raised all the necessary money. It is working with approximately ten other community and sports organisations that it is willing to share the facility with, but at every single turn there are difficulties. There is always a problem. There is a blockage rather than a proactive effort to support and resource it. There is always a reason things cannot be done. That is just not on. I ask that we start to have a proactive response. As well as what it does in football, Pearse Rovers recently raised money for someone in the community who had a bad brain injury and who had family members on the team. Pearse Rovers holds mental health days four or five times a year. It contributes to the community at so many levels.

Another team I visited recently is Granada Football Club in the Blackrock area. Granada has gone from having 500 boys and girls five years ago to 1,300 boys and girls now. It has dedicated teams for kids with disabilities and for those with dyspraxia and autism. It used to have three mixed teams; it now has 20 girls' teams. As we speak, it does not have a pitch for the coming season. The club has some pitches that are being redone, and it welcomes that. For the next 18 months, however, while those pitches are being redone, it has to beg, borrow, and steal pitch space from other clubs that do not really have it. This is because there are not enough pitches. This is a problem that is replicated with club after club.

Park Celtic Football Club in Cabinteely is another team that does not have changing rooms that can facilitate girls. Carriglea Football Club in Monkstown Farm has a lack of pitches, facilities and resources. I could go on through the list. Before I came to this debate, I looked at a comparison of expenditure on sport generally in Ireland versus countries in the rest of Europe. We are at the bottom of the league table by a considerable margin in terms of the amount of resources we put in to sport. Undoubtedly soccer is one of the poor relations. I could also mention amateur boxing in that regard. There is a connection between the most poorly-resources often being the ones that are in working class, and disadvantaged communities. We have to address that. How can we expect football to thrive at the higher level if we do not nourish, feed, resource and facilitate the grassroots, particularly where there is an explosion of interest on the part of girls, boys, men and women in these sports? There is enormous potential but the State must come up to the mark in terms of providing the necessary resources. In budget 2023, the Government cut the amount of money going into sport by approximately €10 million, reducing it from €181 million to €174 million.

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