Eamonn Coghlan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Every weekend, sport in Ireland plays a major role in our society. Tonight, Ireland is playing Germany, the world champions, in the Aviva stadium, hopefully qualifying for the European Championships. On Sunday, Ireland plays France, hoping to top the group for the rugby quarter final the following week. Between tonight and Sunday, millions of people and hundreds of thousands of volunteers in their respective villages, towns and communities will be participating in sport. This morning I was at the launch of the Federation of Irish Sport's Manifesto for Irish Sport. While I welcome the news that the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, will be announcing the €41 million for the sports capital programme, on behalf of the Federation of Irish Sport, I am calling for a serious debate in the Seanad. I call on the Government to take sports more seriously than it has been.

The Manifesto for Irish Sport calls on the Government to adopt and implement a serious sports strategy. We know how important it is socially and economically. It recommends the restoration of funding for sport to 2008 levels by 2021 and that we should treat sport on a par with non-profit organisations, by introducing tax relief on donations to sports. The Government should also develop a specialist entity, which would be dedicated to looking after how sports can economically benefit Ireland. There should be an agency for the sports tourism industry. After all, €450 billion worldwide is spent on sport. Ireland can share in a major part of that and give our sportspeople an opportunity to compete on a world level here at home.