Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Chair and welcome the Minister of State to the House. I thank him for being here.

Several weeks ago, I said I would like to have the Minister with responsibility for sport to come to the House for statements. The whole purpose of my request was that over the past five years, more than €500 million has been handed out to clubs up and down the length and breadth of the country. This has been fantastic and transformative, as we all will acknowledge. I want to know from the Minister of State and his Department how exactly he is observing and scrutinising the clubs that made the appeals and were successful. There were strict criteria, based on factors like community, women and girls, disability, inclusion and climate. They were the four criteria. If it was €100,000, there was €25,000 based in each criterion because that was the points scoring system involved. I want to ensure that over this Seanad term - I do not expect it today or tomorrow - the Department will be able to ensure the funding drawn down by the various clubs, organisations and major bodies actually hits those marks. We do not want to have clubs coming back and saying that because of inflation, they were able to put in the fencing and the grass, but the accessible walkway was left aside. I need to hear from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media that its prioritisation for the clubs is to ensure that all four criteria are upheld.

What projects do we see as priorities to be done within clubs? To me, it is accessibility and inclusion. If you have correct accessibility and inclusion, you have equal participation for all. Licence service agreements have been signed between the various organisations, including disability organisations and women's and girls' organisations, to ensure that applications made by clubs are validated. I want the Department to do an audited check. We have to follow the money to ensure that the need for accountability, participation and inclusion is not a matter of lip service but is understood at a grassroots level.

This brings me to the Paralympics, the wonderful success of which we saw last year in Paris. Since then, a collaborative research project by Paralympics Ireland and the University of Limerick, "The Athlete and Coach Experience of Paralympic Gateways and Pathways in Ireland" was launched in Limerick University last month. It is interesting to look at one or two of the statistics in it. On average, boys start parasports at the age of 12 while girls do not start until the age of 21, or an entire decade later. Some 54% of all Irish people participate in sport weekly. Among Irish people with disabilities, only one in three regularly take part in sport. People with a disability are almost twice as likely to be sedentary, and 40% less likely to have a club membership. I compliment Steven McNamara, Neasa Russell, Lisa Clancy and Clíona Horan on the work they have done to ensure we can have quality conversations on Paralympic sports.

Moving on from that, I wish to understand what the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is doing with the Department of Education and Youth. The national development plan will soon be released and will show what we are doing regarding sports halls in our schools. Some of the first opportunities to participate at an equal level are in school, yet 40% of all our post-primary schools do not have a PE hall, and certainly not in the west of Ireland. We do not have a PE hall so where is that collaborative piece between schools and various Departments?

The last piece relates to looking at what the strategy is for swimming pools being rolled out. We need to ensure it has been reviewed to eliminate the idea that if a town has only 6,500 people, it does not get a swimming pool. Sometimes, the population is wider because the communities and parishes around it support the town.

I asked for statements and have probably put a lot on the table but at the end of the day, it is about participation and retention. One of the biggest issues I have with sport going forward - Senator Conway talked about gambling - is social media. Our safeguarding policies in all our clubs and organisations need to be reviewed to ensure social media is taken into consideration.