Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State. My Adjournment matter relates to whether the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport intends to amend the Irish Sports Council Act 1999. I wish to ascertain the criteria for defining what is and is not a sport. I can fully understand that the Minister does not does not want to get directly involved in making such an adjudication, but I believe the legislation is deficient in its present form. Some principles should be inserted into an amendment of the legislation to allow the Irish Sports Council to better define what is and is not a sport. As of now there is too much emphasis on whether there is a physical aspect, whether it is an Olympic sport, and whether there is almost a televisual aspect to it. When compared with how sports are defined elsewhere, this is a very narrow definition.

First, the legislation should specify that among the criteria the Irish Sports Council should use in deciding whether an activity should be defined as a sport is the question of participation and whether it is an activity in which many people take part and from which many people get enjoyment. Second is the question of agility and ability. In most sporting activities this is taken to be physical agility and ability. I would argue that there are other aspects of the human character relating to a more rounded nature of who we are as people, and certainly mental agility and ability have as much reason to be considered as physical ability. Third is the question of spin-off effects and other benefits from defining an activity as a sporting activity.

By way of example I will cite what is defined in this country as a pastime but in other countries is defined as a sport, which is chess. Obviously it is not a physical activity but it requires a great deal of mental agility. Of the 27 European Union member countries, 23 already define chess as a sporting activity and two other European countries that are not part of the European Union, Norway and Iceland, could be added to that number. It is an activity in which thousands of people take part. It is not a televisual sport or an Olympic activity, although organised chess competitions are known as Olympiads. Among the spin-off effects is that it fosters within young people in particular an ability that can be taken up in key subjects in our curriculum, subjects in which we are trying to improve the knowledge and ability of young people through our educational system and in which if we had greater skills it would benefit the economy. I am thinking mainly about maths and science subjects. The way the activity is regarded in other countries is quite different from how we see it here.

If we had the type of recognition that exists in other European countries, those that promote the activity in this country, the Irish Chess Union in particular, could encourage people to visit Ireland to take part in competitions to promote Ireland as a tourist destination. We could get many benefits from just simply changing how we define something as a pastime or a sport.

On these grounds the criteria used by the Irish Sports Council under the present legislation are far too narrow. Giving the council almost total ability to decide the criteria for defining sports is not appropriate and the Minister, far from interfering in a process, could help in how we define other activities, not only chess, as sports by amending the legislation and allowing the criteria to be formed under certain identifiable characteristics. If this were done, we would have a more effective Irish Sports Council and the Minister could fulfil her brief more appropriately, not only in the sports aspect of her Department, but also in terms of tourism, artistic expression and the cultural aspect. Doing this would allow the Irish Sports Council to play a more rounded role in promoting not only physical sporting activities and those at the highest levels in those physical activities, but also what should be the real concept of sporting activity, which is maximising participation and using that participation to give positive spin-off effects for the type of society in which we live. On those grounds, I hope the Department and the Minister might be more open to amending the Irish Sports Council Act 1999.