Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. Sailing was one of the great success stories for Ireland in the London Olympic Games, with eight Irish competitors taking part.

Annalise Murphy, a 22-year-old student, put in the best performance of the lot. Indeed, she put in the best performance for an Irish sailor since the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

I raise this issue with the Minister to put the proposition to him that it would be great if the legacy of that success this summer was a Government commitment to help open up access to the sport of sailing to ensure more men and women of all backgrounds can take part.

Sailing is a fantastic sport, one of the few in which the breakdown between male and female competitors can be quite even. It is a sport in which people of all ages can take part. One can be just as successful participating in one's 60s as one can at 16 and people of all ages can compete against each other.

Sutton Dinghy Club in my constituency of Dublin Bay north has submitted an application for this year's sports capital grants. I take the opportunity to draw the Minister of State's attention to the fact that the club has been working hard over a long time to open up access to the sport of sailing. It is a sport that can often be seen as elitist or difficult to break into if one does not have a high income. The cost of equipment in terms of having a boat is very high and some clubs have expensive joining fees and membership fees, which can be off-putting, but Sutton Dinghy Club has made a point of trying to keep access to the sport as affordable as possible. It does not charge an entry fee and it has made an effort to keep the annual membership fee as low as it can, particularly for children. It provides a wide range of courses for non-members and last year more non-members than members - 1,200 people of all ages - took part in its training courses. Groups that have used the club include the local schools, the Ballymun Women's Resource Centre, the Central Remedial Clinic, Pearse Street Night Time Tours drugs awareness group, and Youthreach programmes, to name just five. The Minister will be aware from that mix of groups that it caters for people who are trying to overcome drug problems, people with disabilities and those who have dropped out of school. They are using the sport of sailing to give those people an opportunity to take part in a sport, exercise and enjoy themselves, which they would not have done otherwise.

The success of the club's training programmes, in terms of the number of non-members it can bring through, is largely based on the fact that over the years it has acquired sailing boats for the club. This ensures that boats are on-site to enable those who want to do training courses to complete the Irish Sailing Association level 1 and 2 courses without the need for any equipment of their own and the course fees are quite low. Its problem, however, is that it does not have the boats it needs to enable people do courses of level 3 and above. Its application for the sports capital grant is to secure the funding it needs to buy boats to enable people to do such courses. If funding is granted it will be of benefit to the entire local community and to a wide range of socioeconomic groups in different clubs, as I have mentioned, as well as to men and women equally, which is something the Department has tried to incentivise in previous years through the women in sport initiative and through prioritising applications from clubs promoting equal access to sport for women.

I am glad to have the opportunity to draw the Minister's attention to the club's application. I am aware he has hundreds of them on his desk from people across the country. I appreciate that resources are limited but the club is seeking only €25,000, which is a reasonable amount, but one that will make a difference in that it will open up access to a sport in which many people would not otherwise have an opportunity to partake. I hope the legacy of the success we had in sailing this year will inspire the Minister to take this opportunity to open up access to the sport to ensure more people can enjoy sailing and compete for us in the future.