Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Of course, we are going to hear about Dundalk and County Louth, but we will all be wearing our own colours.

Katie Taylor has been mentioned. She is probably one of the best sports people ever to come out of the country. I heard Michael Carruth speak on radio recently about the facilities for boxers. He mentioned, as did Senator Paschal Mooney, that prior to the games in South Korea, the facilities in Bray were spartan. They are now very good. He said the sport of boxing was doing well under the sports capital programme. However, he also said they would always fight their corner to get more. Fair play to him - that is what he should be doing.

I wish to speak about Waterford Institute of Technology. It has a major sports complex which hosts national, interprovincial and international events. We are only short €1.5 million to complete the project which will prove to be the catalyst in attracting many sports events to Waterford and the south east. There will also be a conference centre which will be able to cater for over 2,000 people. This is absolutely necessary as such a centre is not currently available in the south east. I hope the project will not fall between two stools, the Departments responsible for education and sport.

I also wish to refer to physical education, PE, in our schools. There is not enough emphasis on PE in primary schools in particular. There is some emphasis on it in secondary schools but there should be far more PE in primary schools. In that regard I note the project mentioned by Senator Eamonn Coghlan. From a health point of view it is very important that there is greater take-up of, and emphasis on, physical education.

I cannot pass up on the opportunity to compliment our volunteers in every area of sport. I lined pitches, put up nets and, more importantly, took nets down for many years, and people everywhere are doing that day in, day out. They are the unsung heroes of sporting clubs, be it soccer, athletics or any sport. We are blessed to have so many of them and to have that type of volunteerism through the length and breadth of the country.

I wish the Minister of State well and I hope there will be another tranche of sports capital grants in the near future to assist clubs. As Senator Kelly said, the €7,000 that the gymnastics club in Ballaghaderreen received was as important as the €60,000 or €70,000 received by any other club elsewhere in the country. Small grants are as important as the large ones. When people get something they get off their backsides and put the effort into building their communities. The grants given to sports are an investment in communities throughout the country. I commend the Minister in that regard.