Seanad debates
Wednesday, 3 November 2004
National Sports Facilities: Statements.
4:00 pm
Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)
I thank Senator Cummins for sharing his time and I welcome the Minister to the House. Having listened to the debate so far, it is clear that there are two dominant views. The first concerns the provision of sports facilities at national and international levels, and the other concerns their provision at community level. The greatest and most important aspect of sport is participation. It is important to have the widest possible participation at community level.
Over the years, many fine community buildings and complexes were provided at community level, both in urban and rural areas. The funding was largely raised by communities themselves and coupled with lottery funding supplied by various Ministers. The majority of these facilities are lying idle or are under-utilised, not because of a lack of interest in their utilisation but because of prohibitive insurance rates demanded by companies to provide cover for the trustees. The people lumbered with trusteeship of sports facilities cannot risk being uninsured because of the personal nature of the risk. The Minister should consider making grant aid available to pay insurance costs so community facilities could be made available at local level to various sports organisations and young people, be they from national or second level schools, bearing in mind that many national schools, and perhaps some second level schools, do not have any gym facilities except for a short period during the summer months. If this were done, many people would have far greater access to sports facilities.
The GAA has been mentioned more than any other sports organisation. It has provided facilities at national and community levels and is to be commended for doing so. Without its having done so, many children and adults who participate in our national games would not have sports facilities. Resources have been diverted downwards to provide facilities that did not exist some years ago.
It is a terrible tragedy that the Department of Education and Science did not spend the money that was available to it. If part of that money had been spent on the provision of facilities at national school level as part of a combined or group effort, younger people would have much greater access to sports facilities.
The Minister, as a former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, will realise that crime can occur if young people do not have the opportunity to vent their energies through participation in some sport or activity other than lying around waiting for something to happen.
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