Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It seems that the Government has bowed at the altar of the gambling industry, while sport and Irish football have to pick up the tab. I find it hard to take that the discredited and abusive greyhound industry gets €19 million a year, and Irish football and other sports get hardly a fraction of that figure. Governments will talk about sports capital and individual funding projects, as the Minister of State has done, but what is needed is sustained and reliable long-term funding, not once-off payments. That would be helped by increasing the betting levy by 1%.

The Minister of State also mentioned that as it is the Exchequer, there is no ring-fencing of betting levy receipts to any sport or sporting body, but we all know that is not true because the horse and greyhound lobby has got funding that equates to the sums gambled. The Government needs to commit to a new approach to sports funding that places communities, not corporate interests, at the forefront.