Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Much has been said this evening about sport and be it in respect of participation levels or elite athletes, sport is an international phenomenon here in Ireland. Ireland can be described as a sporting nation. People here probably are sporting mad with regard to athletics, soccer, Gaelic games such as hurling or football, horse racing and any and many sports. In recent years, the participation levels in sports certainly have increased. Anecdotally, one can perceive this on any street or town nationwide where people are involved in triathlons, duathlons and in 5 km or 10 km events to raise money for a local GAA club or simply for charity. This must be welcomed.

I certainly welcome some of the initiatives being taken by the Government on the development of sport in general and in particular, I welcome the reintroduction of the sports capital programme. It should never have been dropped in 2008 as that was the wrong decision. It was correct to reopen it on a selective basis and I greatly welcome the funding available under the programme. While everyone would wish to have more funding available for capital investments, we are living in times when the money simply is not there and there must be other ways to find such funding. I intend to touch on one such suggestion in a few minutes. I refer to the work being done at present by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport through the Irish Sports Council. It must be acknowledged that the work being done by the latter is second to none. Although it is administering a budget the Minister has indicated has been cut slightly, it is doing the absolute maximum with it. The council is governing the local sports partnership model and that model, which provides co-ordinated sport, facilitates the development of sport and assists non-governmental organisations, NGOs, in each county, has been shown to be a successful and proven model.

The issue of participation has been touched on in the first instance and participation in sport is vital. While there is a need to fund initiatives that will lead more women to being involved in sport, hand in hand with that there must be more recognition given to female leaders in sport. Regardless of whether this is achieved through the carding system or through the elite programmes for some teams, both go hand in hand. When a young kid on the street sees there is a female athlete or a male athlete achieving success and being recognised for that, it drives that child at that level to be involved, to participate and to interact with sport. Senator O'Keeffe is correct on the issue of high participation levels among children, young people and the youth age groups, after which there is a drop-off and the question is how can that be targeted.

There is a need to target participation in sport, be it through the local partnership model or through other initiatives, and those initiatives require funding. Childhood obesity, which the Minister mentioned, is a difficulty, as is adult obesity. One of the ways to target that problem is through initiatives such as the healthy schools programme. A Trinity College survey carried out recently found that childhood obesity was 9% lower in schools that participated in the targeted health schools programme in the Tallaght area of west Dublin. It found that 16% of the children in schools that had taken part in the healthy school programme were obese compared to 25%, or one in four, in a comparable control group, which equates to a difference of nine percentage points. It showed that children who were not involved were more inclined to be overweight compared to children who were involved. That is only one programme and it is a pilot programme. It takes money to run such programmes on a national basis.

I very much welcome that physical education will be part of the curriculum up to the junior certificate. That needs to be extended to the leaving certificate programme. Initiatives need to be taken in schools at primary level as well. Senator Eamonn Coghlan brought forward such an initiative, and that template, together with other templates such as the healthy schools programme, needs to be funded. The question is how we can do that. The Minister will be competing with other Ministers to provide funding for initiatives such as the carding system for Robbie Heffernan types and those who achieve success at international, Olympic or world level. The question is how we fund such initiatives. On the other hand, how can we increase the participation levels in sport among children and fund more women to participate in sport, fund the provision of facilities, fund initiatives to keep young people engaged in sport rather than dropping out of it and fund other initiatives? One initiative could be a healthy towns initiative, a healthy townlands initiative, or a healthy families initiative such as that shown on an RTE programme recently, which I thought was a great success. How do we do all that?

Senator Landy raised the issue of the betting tax and that tax is available at present in this context. The horse and greyhound racing industries received €54 million this year and approximately 47% of that allocation comes from the 1% tax on betting. The loophole in respect of online betting will be closed but we should not leave the betting tax at the level of 1%. Online betting should be included and the percentage should be increased to 2% or 3%. We should let the horse and greyhound racing industries have the €54 million allocated but the differential in the tax yield should be ring-fenced and spent on sport. I listened to what the Minister said and some figures may be contradicted, but the figure cited by Senator Ó Murchú of €1.45 cent being generated in the Irish economy for every euro spent on sport is not Fianna Fail's figure but a figure that was agreed by the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. Irrespective of what the figures are, if we can reduce obesity and create a healthy society in Ireland, whether in terms of the mental health or the physical well-being of our population, we will reduce the overall health bill for the taxpayer. Irrespective of the economic benefit to the country, that will create a health and well-being benefit for our population. We need to ring-fence that money for sport. I - and, I am sure, all my colleagues in Fianna Fáil - would support the Minister if he fought the fight in that regard. I am currently involved in writing a short paper on the subject. If we increased the betting tax to 2% or 3% and the surplus was spent God knows where, it would be a disserve to sport and to everyone who puts €5 on a Celtic game, a Manchester United game, an athletics event or an any other sporting event apart from horse racing or greyhound racing.

On the GAA issue regarding the broadcasting of the 14 games, I believe the GAA has made the wrong move. It has gone down the wrong road. I am an avid GAA supporter and a member of my local club, but only allowing people-----