Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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57. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the degree to which she expects to be in a position next year to continue to assist the sporting sector given the increased importance of sporting activity in terms of health and well-being; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53556/23]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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This question seeks to ascertain the extent to which the Minister intends to support, promote and offer assistance in any way possible to all sporting activities with a view to ensuring that investment there keeps pace with the ongoing requirement, and given the success of sporting activity, particularly with young people.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I recognise the importance of sport and physical activity for the health and well-being of our society and our people and the need to ensure that opportunities are in place to allow everybody to participate in sport. In budget 2024, we announced an overall budget allocation of €183 million for sport in 2024. This is an increase of 5% on the 2023 allocation. The 2024 allocation for Sport Ireland will deliver an increase of over €7 million in its budget, bringing it to €106.7 million. This level of Government funding will allow Sport Ireland to increase its funding support in a number of very important areas next year, including a €2 million increase in core funding for sporting organisations and a further €2 million increase in funding for the Women in Sport programme.

An additional €1 million in Government funding is being provided for high-performance sport next year. This will support Team Ireland as they prepare for the Olympics and Paralympic Games next year in Paris as well as helping with the continued development of coaching and pathways support.

The sports capital and equipment programme is the main channel of Government support for developing facilities and purchasing equipment for sports clubs and organisations. The 2023 round closed on 8 September, and the total number of applications will exceed the previous record number of 3,106.

The Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, and I hope to be in a position tomorrow to announce further allocations to grantees to ensure that existing large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF, projects are advanced. Following positive engagement with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and his Department, additional funding has been allocated in recognition of the challenges faced by grantees arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, with many projects having to reprioritise their own expenditure plans due to reductions in their income streams. In more recent times, the high level of construction inflation has also presented considerable challenges for grantees. We are also engaging with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and his Department about the funding required to underpin a future round of LSSIF which we will be announcing in the new year.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for that reply. I will further inquire as to the extent to which he and his colleagues intend to extend to both urban and rural areas an even spread of sporting and recreational facilities with a view to ensuring that either urban or rural isolation does not become a problem and that there is an equal attraction in either location to attract and retain young people in their respective areas.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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There is no doubt that we are prioritising the funding of sports facilities through the LSSIF, through the sports capital and equipment programme and through our general funding to Sport Ireland as well. We aim to ensure that a wide range of sports are provided for across the entire country. That has been evident from the work we have done to date.

We want to promote our elites to ensure that they can participate, compete and achieve at the highest possible levels, but we also need to ensure that our participation rates increase, from 43%. They are on the way up but we need to increase them to 60%. That will require investment, funding and support to organisations and sporting bodies and to the people all across the country. That includes people who are sporty. It includes marginalised groups. It includes minority groups. Women in Sport has been a focus. It also includes young people in sports. Connecting in with the education system as well has been important to achieve those targets.

Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent)
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I call Deputy Durkan. We will then take supplementary questions from two other Deputies..

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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To what degree will it be possible to facilitate various sporting groups which found it impossible to meet their budgetary and construction requirements because of Covid and which may have shortfalls arising? To what extent will it be possible to offer them support in light of the pivotal nature of the works in many areas where there is an utter dependancy on the support and assistance the Department can offer? I ask this particularly in view of the success to date and the huge boost to sporting activity in urban and rural areas and the resulting improvements to health and fitness?

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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There have been significant supports to sporting organisations during Covid. There have been general Covid supports. There have been energy supports as well in the context of the price rises that happened after Covid.

In terms of sports capital funding, one could apply for existing projects up to the existing limits in the previous sports capital round to cover the costs of inflation. Quite a number of the large-scale projects did not get off the ground as well, because of construction inflation mainly and because of the impact of Covid.

We invited all of the recipients of the previous round of large-scale funding to apply for further funding and we will be finalising that tomorrow. We will also be announcing a new round of the LSSIF in the new year.

We recognise that there were significant challenges during Covid. We reached out to those who had received funding. They sought more. We had really good engagement with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in relation to that to achieving extra funding, and we are grateful for that.

Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent)
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We will take supplementary questions from Deputies Ó Laoghaire and Murnane O'Connor.

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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In the context of sport, perhaps our most unique sport is the game of hurling. There has been a fair bit of controversy in recent weeks in respect of the proposals relating to the counties where clubs do not have hurling teams.

Does the Minister of State have concerns about the proposal that exists? If we are going to promote the game in those counties, the game generally needs to be promoted. There is a lot of concern again this year about the proposition by GAAGO regarding many of the most prominent hurling games at the start of the year. There is a fear among people who support hurling. My own county of Cork is particularly affected but generally among hurling people, there is a fear that GAAGO is being promoted off the back of some of the very competitive hurling matches at the start of the interprovincial championships. They fear that the balance is not quite right between the two sports and that many people who would have given many years of service to the GAA might not have the technology or the income to get GAAGO and will miss out on major matches that they might previously have been in a position to see.

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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In Carlow, an excellent and very successful private sports programme was delivered for older persons through SETU. Sport Ireland has recently withdrawn the funding which has heavily subsidised this class. The majority of the participants on this scheme were on disability pensions or old-age pensions. The users of the service see their physical health, energy and overall well-being vastly improved as a result of participating in the programme. The money used to subsidise the programme was part of a research project, physical activity for chronic conditions, PACC, to try to develop an affordable pathway for persons living with chronic conditions to participate in physical activity. The programme was delivered by a private service but it is no longer possible for the local support partnership to fund it. This was a great scheme and many people have contacted me about it in the last week. I ask that it be looked at.

Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Similar to other Deputies, I want to raise the issue of the accessibility of our national games, the controversy following the publication of GAAGO schedule for 2024 and the ongoing inquiry by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission in regard to the licence for GAAGO, which was originally designed for an international market but is now exclusive in showing games on a domestic basis. I want to ask in regard to the remit of the GAA and RTÉ, our national broadcaster, which has exclusivity not just on the free-to-air broadcast but is also a 50% partner with the GAA on this paywall platform. There are consumer issues that I would raise with the Minister of State. Certainly, this deal was originally negotiated with the former director general, Dee Forbes, at a time when RTÉ was really driving its commercial revenue. It does not sit well with many of the GAA fraternity, in particular with those who have digital inequality across rural areas. I ask the Minister of State to look at this as a matter of priority.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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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.