Mark Duffy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This a moment of great opportunity for Irish sport. This weekend the new League of Ireland season began and I had the good fortune of attending the Bohemians versus Shamrock Rovers game in the Aviva Stadium. It was incredible to see the energy and the enthusiasm and the sheer number of fans who attended. I compliment everyone who was involved in that. Over the weekend 51,000 people attended League of Ireland games in the Premier League division alone. If we compare that with ten years ago, just 18,000 people attended across both the League of Ireland Premier and First divisions. I congratulate my old team mate, John Mountney, who played a great game at left back for Bohemians who kept a clean sheet and got the three points.

The reason I bring this up is that before I entered politics I was involved in an initiative to create an all-island league, merging the League of Ireland in the South and the Northern Irish Premiership in the North. It was a group spearheaded by Kieran Lucid. We had former Republic of Ireland manager, Brian Kerr, on our working group, and we had engaged Dutch football consultants, Hypercube.It created a brilliant model that would maintain the autonomy of both leagues, North and South. The model also has an advanced second phase of the competition in the second half of the season, in which both leagues would be able to maintain European places. It is a model that would elevate football throughout the island. Investment in football at grassroots level can have huge bang for your buck. It would create a great opportunity economically and keep our talent and young people on the fields and playing at elite levels.

If we invest in supporting initiatives such as the NFL, which is a good example, we also need to invest in League of Ireland academies, potentially through the shared island scheme if the all-island league is something both associations are willing to revisit. The Dutch football consultants we engaged, Hypercube, created the new Champions League format. It has created for us a model that would elevate attendances at games and sporting standards throughout the League of Ireland and in the North.

I share in the congratulations to Shamrock Rovers in its exploits in Norway last week and I wish the team well tomorrow night in Tallaght. I call on the Minister for sport to engage with us in the Seanad and have a conversation on how we can improve supporting academy players. Since Brexit, League of Ireland players do not travel to the UK until after they are 18 years of age, so there is a great opportunity to invest in our academies and improve the standard and quality of football in Ireland. Multiannual contracts would mean we could have investment in football clubs. It would be brilliant economically and, from a sporting point of view in elevating Irish football, presents a great opportunity. I would welcome a conversation on it.