Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)

We will look at all of this. I want to ensure that our local authorities are thinking seriously about sporting facilities in their planning for an area and their use of land, particularly existing land. I also want to ensure our schools are thinking about how they can collaborate with sporting clubs. While land is a challenge, there is a lot of latent potential in the land we have. In the past, we did not put enough focus on getting people to co-operate and collaborate and to think how they can work together to develop facilities. We will be considering that very strongly in advance of decisions on the structure of the next sports capital grant, along with consideration of where the acute gaps are.

Deputy Connolly has been speaking to me on a number of projects in Galway. He wants to see real progress there and he has ideas about how we can try to promote this. I look forward to working and engaging with the Deputy as well as with others to see how we can best make sure the sports investment we are putting in makes the biggest impact at local level.

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