Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I will be brief. I commend him on the work he is doing in the sports Department and, in particular, his focus on ensuring that facilities across the country have access for both men and women. Very recently he had the privilege of visiting my hometown of Castlebar and he visited our key project in the town, the Leisure Complex at Lough Lannagh and the development of our climbing wall. We were very fortunate with the sports capital allocation last year to get significant funding towards the climbing wall and we have another application in for this year. We are expanding the project and we have to deal with the additional costs which arise in delivering that project.

The project ticks all boxes and will be equally accessible to everybody. It will be owned by the local authority and not by any particular club. It is a joint venture with the Atlantic Technological University, ATU. It will be of use there for students doing the outdoor education programme and will be available to everybody in the community, all clubs and communities and every member of the area. It will be the only climbing wall of its kind in the county and, indeed, across the region. We are developing the Lough Lannagh sports facility. We have the swimming pool and the tennis club as well with the dome on site.We are master-planning that in order to ensure it can be a regional centre for sporting excellence, not just for County Mayo but also for the entire region. I thank the Minister of State for being at ATU, where he heard first-hand about the Castlebar Chamber of Commerce report on the economic benefits of sports in the county town and the wider community. It was the first of its kind. The Castlebar Chamber of Commerce commissioned the work and published the report, which the Minister of State was there to launch. I thank him for visiting our county town, Castlebar, seeing the sports complex there and Lough Lannagh, giving his support to the development of the climbing wall and launching the report on behalf of Castlebar Chamber of Commerce.