Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Independent)

One cannot say much in two minutes but the point I will make is that funding is welcome but we need more of it. Capital projects have a huge return, especially, as others have noted, in terms of working with sports clubs. I support what my colleague Deputy Fitzmaurice said about a loan scheme to top up funding.

We also need to look to more creative thinking. In my constituency, Clonburris strategic development zone, SDZ, will be home to 11,000 houses and 20,000 people but it does not have a fraction of the pitch capacity it needs. There is a case for building up in the inner city and in rapidly growing suburban areas like Clonburris. Five-a-side pitches can be put on rooftops. The City Edge initiative by Dublin City Council and South Dublin County Council is seeing development on old industrial land. Why not put five-a-side pitches on top and leave room down on the ground for GAA, rugby and cricket pitches? With climate change, we will need more all-weather pitches, whether grass or synthetic.

We need to look more at multi-use funding. Years ago, I called for schools to function also as community hubs, subject to child protection, with different rooms suitable for different groups at different hours of the day and with solar panels installed. Every new school should have a full-size pitch on which soccer can be played. It could be used by the school during the day and could operate as a community hub in the evening. That has never been done. We are wasting money when we could be creative if we had some more cross-departmental co-operation.

Funding must be increased. We are still spending too much on horses and greyhounds, as I have mentioned many times. We also need to think smarter about how we spend our money. We must think laterally and outside the box.

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