Fergal Browne (Fine Gael)

As the Minister of State is aware, the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism has the joyful task of making many sports clubs happy in allocating national lottery funding in the next few weeks. New Oak Boys Soccer Club in Carlow is one club that has made an application. This club is in a unique situation because it has the club house and pitches but requires fencing in order to be fully operational.

I will explain the background to the case. The Minister of State might be aware of matters in Carlow. New Oak Boys Soccer Club previously leased a small piece of green field — I would not call it a pitch — off Carlow Town Council that was adjacent to the former cattle mart site in Carlow. This site was bought by Gerard O'Hare, a developer, and is the site of the new Tesco shop in Carlow, along with other shops. It is a big shopping centre. The piece of land owned by the council and leased to New Oak Boys Soccer Club was used to put a road into the new shopping centre. As part of the deal, the developer in question relocated the pitch to Burrin Road, which is only a few hundred yards away, and put in a proper pitch, training area and dressing rooms with showers and changing facilities for both teams and referees.

The club is slightly unusual in so far as it has the most important things. Unfortunately, one thing it does not have is security fencing. It is regrettable that it needs it. I cannot understand the mentality of people who vandalise such a facility when areas are crying out for sports facilities. Unfortunately, a small minority goes out of its way to cause trouble. The new club house and pitch have been the scene of many spates of vandalism. As a keen sportsperson the Minister knows this cannot be allowed to happen. The danger is that one could have glass or needles on the pitch so it is vital to get the security fencing.

The grant from the national lottery covers security fencing but in the past, the national lottery has tended to ignore this aspect and concentrate more on buildings, dressing rooms and pitches. This case is the opposite to the norm and I hope the Minister ensures that the New Oak Boys Soccer Club gets a grant which will hopefully be approximately €60,000. Such a grant could allow the club to finish the fencing and have a state of the art soccer facility in the heart of Carlow town which will benefit boys, teenagers and adults in the town.

This club has a fantastic record. It has played in South America and taken teams to Manchester and other places. It provides a significant resource for the town and provides facilities for visiting teams in which to play. I hope the Minister of State passes my words to the Department and that it looks sympathetically at this case.