Brendan Ryan (Labour)

My views on the appropriateness of the motion were made known on the Order of Business, an issue to which I will return. If I thought this was an appropriate place to debate the matter, I would enthusiastically endorse much of what has been said. Perhaps as a coded way of talking about the overall neglect of Connacht and the west generally it has some appropriateness.

I am a great believer in the role of the State in all areas of development and I am considerably sceptical about much of the ideological determination to withdraw the State from many areas of activity. I believe in the role of the State in issues like funding sport and other sorts of voluntary activity. However, in order for that to work successfully one has to be extremely careful not to let a situation develop where the State believes it can tell voluntary groups what they should do in detail with those resources. There has been considerable controversy in recent years about the Arts Council, with some people suggesting it had too much autonomy and that broader issues of policy ought to be determined elsewhere. I am pragmatic enough to know that if one has an attempt to tell a sporting organisation how it should do its business, that will be done by a civil servant, not a Minister. No Minister is going to get involved in that sort of detail, even though he may go through the rituals.

I have reservations about the priorities involved in spending two hours of the time of one House of the Oireachtas debating an issue like this and the idea that political power should be invoked to attempt to influence decisions by a voluntary organisation which has not done anything illegal. The IRFU is doing nothing illegal; this is a matter of its choices and priorities.