Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I thank him for taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Byrne. The reality is we do not have facilities that are of an equal standard throughout the country and across all sporting activities. Over the last number of years, and particularly since the 2020 campaign from the Federation of Irish Sport, we have seen a massive increase in female participation across the main codes, namely, GAA, rugby and soccer. As I said, the reality is that a significant number of those facilities were built solely with men in mind because of the fact that there were not female teams in that local area or parish. My own local community is a prime example of that. I have been involved in the GAA at a local, provincial and national level for a long time but I am still involved in my own local club. We developed our facilities just over 25 years ago.However, we did not have a female team in the club at the time and the facilities were built with men in mind, particularly the toilet and showering facilities. We now have an active underage and adult ladies club, and it is time that we brought our facilities up to equal status. We have all heard stories of ladies’ county teams not getting access to county grounds in years gone by. We have come a long way since then and are now at a point I am strongly supportive of, namely, the one club model, with the integration of the LGFA, the Camogie Association and the GAA into one GAA family. We are one GAA family and that is where we need to be. The joint Oireachtas committee on sport recently held discussions on this matter with the former President, Professor Mary McAleese, and the three associations. We aim to achieve integration by 2027, but our facilities are not up to standard. This is not just the case in the GAA, but across boxing, rugby and all other sports. I have been working with Longford Rugby Club on a sports capital grant application to upgrade its showering and toilet facilities to proper levels for the ladies club.

I want a specific fund set up for clubs. We are anxiously awaiting the announcement of the sports capital programme, which I hope will be next September or October. I believe that more than €320 million is being allocated to it this year. We need to introduce a specific programme for upgrading facilities in this way because, although some clubs are upgrading theirs, some are not. We need to make this a priority. We need to have equal facilities in all sports. Having a specific fund would give clubs an incentive to make this a priority over other issues, for example, lighting, stands, etc. This needs to be the number one priority. Our facilities for female participants must be on a par with those for males. There have been recent successes in athletics and boxing. Newstalk ran a programme last week following my press release on this matter and highlighted that some of our well-known international boxers did not have facilities in their clubs.

The fund would not just be for the GAA, but all sports. We are in 2024 and it is time we set a deadline of a number of years, put funding in place and ensure that female and male athletes’ facilities in every sporting organisation are on par.