Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Dooley. I am a member of the IPU and would have raised that issue in this House. I fully support him in calling for the Minister to come before us. It is important that we support the network.

I also wish to raise the issue of the certainty of funding for development officers in various sports partnerships throughout the country. The challenge for sports partnerships is that they only have certainty of funding for a period of one year. As a result, there is no option but to employ development officers on temporary contracts for one year. The level of uncertainty caused by the present arrangements means the partnerships are restricted in their capacity to forward plan and can only plan ahead for a few months at a time. The arrangement is not conducive to long-term or strategic planning and it means the loss of the investment that any local authority or partnership put into the development of these officers and the expertise they gain. While it is likely that Sport Ireland will continue to fund these jobs, consideration needs to be given to introducing a multi-annual funding stream to ensure that full-time, permanent community sports development officers and inclusion officers can be employed by local authorities through the sports partnership. This will enable the partners to become more embedded in the functions of local authorities and help them achieve their objective of creating and maintaining healthy, active and sustainable communities in our towns.

I also ask that the sports partnerships undertake an audit of sporting facilities throughout the country to ensure that all citizens have access to the large number of sports available and that funding, whether from sports capital grants or Departments, is arrogated to ensure that this happens. I think of my home county of Longford and the lack of indoor and outdoor athletic facilities. The Department and Sport Ireland should be financially supporting the local athletics club in order to ensure that these facilities are provided.I also think of Connacht Hockey, and a number of Members from Galway will be well aware that upgrade from a 2G to a 4G pitch has meant that the grounds are no longer available for hockey. There is only one pitch available in the whole of Galway for over 1,400 children. Any funding or project should be channelled through the sports partnership to make sure that these situations are not repeated and that we are maximising the number of participants in all our sports.