Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A Chathaoirligh, I wish to echo the compliments of others to you on your remarks for President Biden's visit here last week, and to compliment the staff of the Houses on their wonderful organisation of a wonderful occasion.

The Leader will be aware that over Easter, there was a lot of discussion around the racist abuse of a Wexford sportsman, and indeed a national sportsman, Lee Chin. Lee has given enormous service to the GAA in County Wexford and is regarded as a role model in sport generally. He has done a lot to encourage young people to get involved in the game. It was all the more a pity that this racist abuse happened at a charity match between Wexford and Tipperary.

The GAA is dealing with it. I am quite happy with how strongly it intends to address it. However, we need to hold a debate around racism in sport and more widely in society. It is something of deep concern.The Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media, of which Senator Cassells and I are members, published a report on abuse in sport. For any sports organisation that fails to take strong action where there is abuse of any kind against officials, referees or sports stars, the committee report stated there should be implications for the organisation regarding State funding. This should not just apply to national governing bodies. It should equally apply to sports clubs, not just in the GAA but across all disciplines if we allow this to continue. I include sports capital grants in this regard because any sports club that does not take the issue of discrimination and abuse seriously should not have access to funding. I ask that the Leader facilitate a debate around the topic of racism and discrimination in sport and invite the Minister responsible for sport to come to the House to discuss the matter.