Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the inadequacy of local sports facilities in many of our communities. St. Kevin's Kilian's GAA club serves Kilnamanagh and Kingswood, where I live. It has close to 500 players and 1,000 members across 26 teams and an academy. It caters for boys and girls aged two up to adults but it does not have basic facilities such as toilets and changing rooms. The club produced a ten-year strategic plan a couple of years ago with the modest ambition of having changing rooms and toilets and building to a position of having a small AstroTurf training area and a hurling wall. I met a guy the other night who was going down with his kid to play against the shopping centre wall, where he can be kicked out, because there are none of these facilities. The problem is with the council. The club is willing to pay for these facilities, to do the fund raising itself but the council will not allow it on the basis that it falls outside its remit. It does not make sense. There needs to be local facilities in local areas.

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