Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for his words. I welcome the Minister of State with responsibility for sport and physical education. It is great to have the Minister of State in the Chamber, and it is even better because he comes from County Meath.

He mentioned sports capital grants. Their significance is recognised by all of us as not just something positive for the sports clubs that become the recipients of the funding but also for the wider community. They have such a positive legacy. The programme is one of the great initiatives from Government. I look forward to working with the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, and his Department to ensure we get the most from the funding that is available, and ensure that participation levels in sport, and particularly in minority sports, are increased as a result of this investment.

Sport has been in the headlines all of this week, on the front pages more than the back pages, in articles pertaining to broadcasting rights and the GAA. There has certainly been a lot of ball hopping on around this issue. At yesterday's meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, I was glad that after a very championship-like debate we came to a position where one sports organisation was not being singled out for attention or scrutiny by politicians.If we get into a sphere where politicians are dictating what matches are shown on television, it will be bad for democracy and the body politic if we think we should be directing the TV schedules. With the height of respect for our Taoiseach, when I hear him saying the important games should be on the telly, I will not ask for his views on what the important matches are at the weekend. I am glad the GAA, the IRFU, the FAI and the broadcasters have all been invited to the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media, following a proposal by Senator Malcolm Byrne, to have a discussion about the future of sports broadcasting in Ireland. We will leave the matter at that level.

The Minister of State is before the House to discuss the committee's report on the abuse of officials. When one thinks back, we started this process at Christmas 2021. In November 2021, 550 games in the north Dublin schoolboy and schoolgirls league were cancelled because of a strike by referees due to the consistent abuse of referees in schoolboys and schoolgirls' football. We have to think about that. It goes to the root and the heart of the matter here. There is abuse of officials at children's football matches. We have young children in the Gallery today. Imagine that there is abuse by adults who should no better but do not. That particular incident shone a spotlight on this issue and led to the compilation of this report and the recommendations within.

It grieves me to think that a year and a half on, we are not in a better position. In fact, one might say we are in a worse one given that even in the past couple of weeks, Louth referees in the Louth and Meath district league went on strike because of an extremely serious incident where a referee was kung fu kicked by a player who was captured on camera doing so. The bans handed out were so weak that the referees felt they were not being protected and went on strike. We had GAA referees in Kilkenny who conducted a four-day strike because of sustained abuse of their officials. It goes to the heart of the problem that there is a culture problem in this country among players and supporters in respect of officials. I am glad the Minister has taken such an initiative to bring representatives of the pillar sports into her offices this week to engage with them. The administrators of the game need this to change because they realise not only that the strikes by officials will accelerate but that there is not a hope of attracting young referees in to fill the void when others move on. The codes of conduct the Minister of State spoke about are very important.

The committee made many recommendations and the report alludes to them. I am not going to go through them all. The Minister of State touched on one, the stick approach proposed by Mary O'Connor from the Federation of Irish Sport. Ms O'Connor is a multiple all-Ireland champion in both codes so she is grounded in sport. She spoke of erecting codes of conduct on the entrance to grounds for those who have been in receipt of State funding. She also said that egregious breaches of those codes of conduct should lead to the clubs in question being temporarily suspended from applying for sports capital grants. One might ask what such breaches might be. Where a player kung fu kicks a referee and leaves him in hospital, that is a very clear breach. I have heard the Minister of State say publicly that these are also criminal matters in which An Garda Síochána will become involved. This is where we are going because it is not acceptable for young children to see that kind of behaviour by adults on the field.

The Minister of State also noted that the abuse of officials and players online is now just as serious. Words matter. We know the weight of words in these Chambers. Words matter and online abuse is abhorrent. The president of the GAA sat in the ministerial chair just two weeks ago. He has made it one of the hallmarks of his presidency to call out this behaviour. He does not have legislation at his disposal but what he has is the moral authority to call out those who purport to be fans or supporters of sport but go online and abuse our players and referees. As the Minister of State has said, the Oireachtas did huge work on the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 so that Coimisiún na Meán and the commissioner will be able to hold to account the platforms on which these people are afforded an opportunity to spew their vile. They will be held accountable because the major tech providers on social media have failed in their own codes of conduct. We are relying, therefore, on people such as Larry McCarthy, as well as the FAI and the IRFU, to call out instances where legislators have failed - although we are at least addressing the issue - and the tech companies have certainly failed to protect ordinary innocent people, in particular amateur sports people as well. Working with the Minister of State, I hope we can continue to call that out.

We are a sporting country. We are not just about the three main sports. In compiling our report, the committee worked with Hockey Ireland, the Volleyball Association of Ireland, Cricket Ireland and the Irish Judo Association. It was frightening to think that they all reported levels of abuse among minority sports. All of them have shown a willingness to tackle this issue, however. We do not want to see the report parked today. When we launched it, we did not want to see the report ignored. The reason I call for this debate is to keep this issue front and centre and keep it alive in the public consciousness. Unfortunately, it has been kept alive because a year and a half on, those breaches and attacks, both physical and online, are still occurring. We need to make it stop; we need to call a halt. I am glad the Minister of State is taking the lead in that respect.