Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In terms of sport, our number one aim is to have more participation. While we do not get involved in the internal GAA discussions on hurling in individual counties, the way the competitions work or who can take part, our overriding aim in funding sports bodies is to have more participation. I note that a decision is upcoming which the counties concerned will be satisfied with. I welcome that as I think it is very important to protect hurling and to protect those players. I was at the GAA champions awards and it was great to see hurlers from counties that are not particularly known for hurling coming up for awards. From talking to one of them, it appears that just two or three clubs are taking part in some counties but these people can then excel at county level, which is very important, and get awards that recognise that they make a national impact despite the fact their own counties are not strong hurling counties and it is very much a minority sport. We have to protect that. It is a minority sport in certain areas but there are many sports like that and we have to protect them all.

With regard to GAAGO, Deputy Catherine Martin is the media Minister. I would say that we want to see as much as possible free-to-air. Of course, it cannot all be on RTÉ but hurling is a national sport and it is a pity if people cannot see it. The Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, has made his views very clear on this. The message that we want to get out to the GAA is that people want to see this and they want to enjoy those particular games. There are rules in relation to media. We do not tell channels what to put on but we certainly want to see as much participation as possible. If you see it, you can be it. That is what sports organisations must bear in mind.

There is a real problem with some of the pay-per-view at a global level. There are fewer and fewer people actually seeing games but they are paying more and more. That is not ideal. It is certainly not ideal for our national sport.

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