Martin Conway (Fine Gael)

The Minister of State is most welcome to the House. I know he has an interest in sport, particularly the performance of his county's football team last weekend. It is a very exciting time for the county.

Sport is an equaliser, it brings connectivity and it brings people together. It absolutely must be fully accessible. Many families in our nation are very committed to all kinds of sports. The GAA has percolated into every town and village in the country and we also see the prominence of other sports. The development of facilities is very encouraging, with hundreds of millions of euro of Government spending in recent years on upgrading facilities the length and breadth of the country. That is all very welcome.

I have less than 20% eyesight. As a young fellow in County Clare, there was no opportunity for me to participate in sport. Thankfully, that situation has improved significantly. I commend Special Olympics Ireland on its wonderful work. Our paralympians also do fantastic work representing the country. This time last year, Senator Rabbitte, who was then Minister of State, and I attended an event in Farmleigh House to recognise the stunning achievement of the visually impaired paralympians in the Paralympic Games. It was wonderful.

There must be access to facilities for people who are not elite athletes and may not fall into the Special Olympics category. I am talking about people like me who need, should and deserve to be more active. Every child with a disability in this country should be able to be active, be involved in sport and have access to their local facilities, whether for swimming, football, soccer, rugby, tennis or whatever is their chosen sport.

I was on the board of directors of Active Disability Ireland for a number of years. That organisation, which is based in Kerry and now has a national footprint, has done huge work to promote and encourage governing bodies to ensure they have programmes that include everybody, including football for all and other accessible sporting provision for all people with disabilities.

One positive measure the Minister of State's Department could engage in is to ensure that all sports capital grants have a requirement that organisations demonstrate in a real and meaningful way, not as a box-ticking exercise, how they are making their facilities accessible to everybody. They must show what programmes they have in place to ensure inclusivity, whether it is wheelchair hurling or having vision-impaired people involved in the club.What are they doing to make sport available to everybody, irrespective of their ability or disability? In previous Governments, significant progress was made in this area but it needs to be firmed up. There is no reason a young person should not be included in PE in their school simply because they have a physical disability. It is not good enough and it should not be accepted. The debate today has been interesting. I agree wholeheartedly with everything Senator Rabbitte said earlier. She made a difference when she was Minister of State and was committed. There are lots of Ministers who do a lot of talking, but Senator Rabbitte made a huge difference. I know that the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, will do the same. I have known him a long time and he is deeply committed to what he does.