Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will start by paying tribute to our colleague, Deputy Ó Ríordáin, for his immense passion and his immense and long-standing commitment to the game of football and for the incredible eloquence of his "Football is Ireland" speech earlier, which everyone has commended. I thank colleagues across the House for supporting the motion. I welcome those joining us in the Gallery from local clubs and our great international players, Niall Quinn, Paddy Mulligan and Turlough O'Connor. I thank the members of my local teams who joined us outside, particularly the great players Millie, Zoe, Rose and Matilda from Harold's Cross Youth Football Club and Councillor Fiona Connelly and the team from Larkview FC in Kimmage. It was wonderful to see so many outside with us earlier for our Labour Party motion. I will also mention a club in my local area that would have loved to attend and that has sent strong support and expressed to me its frustration at the lack of resources for pitches and so on. The team, Belmont FC in Donnybrook, cannot be here today. Very sadly, many of its members are attending this morning's funeral in Donnybrook church of Andrew O'Donnell, one of the two young men, along with Max Wall, who tragically died in Ios so recently. I attended Max Wall's funeral on Monday. I again extend my sympathies and condolences to his family and to the family of Andrew O'Donnell, whose funeral is today. They are an immense loss to their communities and their families and friends.

There are few sports that are so capable of lifting communities as football. We have seen that expression of support for soccer across the House. Many of us are old enough to remember the excitement of Italia '90. I know we are all hopeful and optimistic that our wonderful women's team is going to capture the spirit of a nation again and lift our spirits in Australia and perhaps even in New Zealand over the coming months as they play in the FIFA Women's World Cup. We also know how much football helps to bond communities at local level. I have mentioned some of our local clubs in Dublin Bay South but there are so many great clubs, including Cambridge FC and St. Patrick's YFC in Ringsend and Irishtown, Lourdes Celtic FC in Kimmage, Terenure Rangers and Beechwood FC, to name just some.

These clubs are really helping to bond groups within communities, and to lift health and morale among children in particular.

However, I want to say that for far too long girls' football has been the poor relation. While football has been a poor relation politically among sports in Ireland, unfortunately, we have seen girls' football in particular really disadvantaged. I am someone who is passionate about bringing girls forward through football. I have worked for many years at local level through Larkview FC, and before that Inchicore Athletic FC girls, to bring up girls' football. We have seen that significant barriers remain to girls' and women's participation at equal level in sport. We had Lisa Fallon speaking passionately to us recently at an Oireachtas briefing about just how difficult it is for so many girls to participate fully in sport, particularly with the lack of facilities. We know from the FAI's report that 38% of clubs do not have women's toilets, and I want to commend the FAI on putting forward a very strong 15-year strategy that looks to grow the sport at local grassroots level and at League of Ireland and international levels. I agree with its strong emphasis on developing facilities, and ensuring that there are equal changing facilities or women and girls.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne's announcement, with the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin at Farmleigh last week, of the additional funding for women's sport to bring forward women's coaching, player development, but we need to see that investment in facilities as well. We will certainly be continuing to press for that.

We also want to see stronger support programmes for players, including centralised contracts for young women and men. We are all mindful that it is only six years since the women's international team had to strike to get decent facilities. I was chairperson of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality and we made recommendations about making sports funding conditional on gender equality measures. Again, I very much welcome the Minister of State's announcement on sports capital funding. That is very important, but we need to ensure football is accessible to all, including children with disabilities, and LGBT children and adults. We need to see football moving to tackle racism and homophobia, and to see football being inclusive for all, with the development of all-weather pitches so everyone in every community can play. I know that is the vision we all share.

The time has come for football. We are glad that the Government has not opposed our motion, but the campaign does not stop here. We in the Labour Party will continue to work to realise that ambition for Ireland to develop one of the best women's and men's leagues in the world, to make football fully accessible to all, and to break down the barriers that still hinder the participation of women and girls in the beautiful game. I want to end by wishing Vera Pauw's army the very best, the wonderful Abbie Larkin from Ringsend, Katie McCabe, and all the players on our team. We will be rooting for them in the FIFA Women's World Cup.

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