Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)

Senator Andrews will know as well as I do that, across all sectors of society, and with the organisations we deal with and the demands in terms of public services, the asks are always far more every year than the capacity to develop. In terms of running a good economy, we have to have the capacity to incrementally improve things every year. The Government commitment to football in this budget saw football as the sport that was prioritised by far the most within the increase in budgetary allocation. For example, €10 million extra was allocated to Sport Ireland this year. Some €3 million of that is for soccer academies. That cannot be the case every year in terms of one sport getting such a big increase but it has been the case this year. It is a multi-annual commitment and it is something we will look to build on. The point I made on budget day was that this is a big vote of confidence by the Irish Government in the future of Irish football. We want to see it supported and we want to see it growing. We want to see young people across the country get the opportunities they deserve to maximise their potential. Participation is obviously crucial, everyone having the opportunity to participate, be healthy and enjoy football as they do every other sport, but we also want to ensure that that excellence is fostered and that people can be the best players they possibly can be. In particular, we want to see that feed the wonderful renaissance we have seen in the League of Ireland, which we want to support as a Government both through capital funding for the development of facilities and through the grassroots and the academy system.

This is a big step forward. It has been welcomed as such by the FAI, and we look forward to working with the FAI and through the auspices of Sport Ireland to make sure that this makes a real impact on the ground and that we see it really deliver in the future and feed through not just at grassroots level but right to our national teams, including at under-17 level, with the match that team will play today. We hope to see much more of that in the future and right through, ultimately, to the senior national teams as well.