Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I acknowledge and welcome Shelbourne's new 250-year lease on its grounds, which is positive and will secure the club's future. I believe it signed the lease yesterday with Dublin City Council. It can develop the way a club of its standing should. It is a great community club. I also want to wish the Irish under-17s, with Colin O'Brien as manager, good luck in the World Cup. Their first game today is against Panama and I wish the team well.

Last month, the Government announced €3 million in funding for the establishment of League of Ireland academies. This was very welcome. It is long overdue and a small step forward. The sad fact is that our international team is a pale shadow of its former self and our domestic league is miles off where it should be and could be if it had the investment it desperately needed over the years. We are simply not able to compete at an international level and are at present incapable of sustainably developing players or clubs from a grassroots level.

We need a seismic shift in funding and a completely new approach to Irish football by the State. Unfortunately, €3 million is not enough. It is a good start, but more has to be committed to. Some €4.5 million was requested by the Football Association of Ireland, FAI, for academies in its pre-budget submission, but this baseline figure was not delivered in the budget. If we want to see the likes of Italia 90 and Euro 88 again, the very basic requirement must be the proper funding and resourcing of our academies.

A significant number of young players are eager and passionate to develop and succeed here and fulfil their potential, but they simply do not have the opportunity or contact hours they need to develop and grow, not to mention a lack of facilities and coaching staff. We have unbelievably good football people in Ireland, along with great sports people and committed volunteers who do Trojan work each and every day to support their communities and Irish football. There is a huge appetite for football in the country. Before practically every international campaign, the nation is filled with hope for the matches ahead and an eagerness to see our boys and girls in green succeed. Too often, however, this hope is let down by the obvious lack of ambition or interest in football by the State going back decades.

The investment compared with other countries competing between positions 50 to 100 shows that we lag way behind in the world rankings. This has resulted in a base of players which is simply not up to scratch compared with other countries of a similar size and stature to Ireland. No change in manager will transform our international team into one capable of qualifying for major tournaments. The reality is that we have to take a systemic and grassroots approach. We cannot sit around and wait for success to magically come our way. We have to invest in the sport at a community level to enable our young players to develop skills and progress through their career.

The key to this is the League of Ireland and its academies, which allow players to engage in football in their own towns and cities and gives them the contact hours and education they need. The league has been long abandoned by the State, with outdated infrastructure and a lack of recognition by broadcasters and policymakers. Its popularity is steadily growing in spite of the challenges, but underfunding remains the primary obstacle to the long-term success of Irish football. I urge the Government to finally recognise the vital importance of the League of Ireland to Irish football and ask the Minister of State to lay out whether the Government has plans to develop the league to meet its potential.

I wish Shamrock Rovers success on Sunday in the FAI cup final, which should be a great occasion. Cork had a poor season, but it is great to see two big clubs in Irish football play in a showcase tournament.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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Before I call on the Minister to reply, I welcome Scoil Chrónáin Naofa from Bray. You are most welcome to Seanad Éireann. I am delighted you could come. I do not know whether you heard about the unofficial role of Seanad Éireann, but there is no homework for the rest of the week when you visit Seanad Éireann. If the teachers do give you homework for the rest for the week, let me know and I will write to them.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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That same rule does not apply to Ministers who appear before the Seanad, does it?

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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No, Ministers have to do their homework.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Andrews for raising this matter. The Irish under-17 team are appearing in their first U-17 World Cup match in Qatar today, against Panama. I wish them well in the match. It is good to see that it will be shown live on RTÉ 2. Likewise - and, being from Donegal, I can be more neutral than Senator Andrews - I wish Shamrock Rovers and Cork well in what I hope will be a really good showcase for League of Ireland football in the FAI Cup final this Sunday. I was glad to attend the FAI Women's Cup final Sunday week last in Tallaght Stadium. It was a really good game of football between Bohs and Athlone Town, and congratulations to Athlone Town on a well-deserved win. It is good to be here today, particularly on the back of the recent budget commitment from the Government to the development of Irish football, young footballers and, in particular, an academy system.

The programme for Government includes a commitment to explore new mechanisms for the creation of football academies with the Football Association of Ireland and the League of Ireland. An important piece of work in this context is supported by an additional funding grant by the Department of €1 million to the FAI last year. That funding enabled the FAI to appoint an academies administrator to support the development of new academy programmes and to track their impact.

The grant has also enabled the FAI to produce its League of Ireland global findings report, by the internationally recognised Double Pass football consultancy, on developing football academies in Ireland, including an audit of existing academy structures and needs. The report outlines 50 recommendations which, if implemented in the coming years, could create a strong academy system that would underpin a sustainable domestic football league and, ultimately, strengthen the quality of players coming through to the national teams.

As part of budget 2026, I was pleased to announce a €3 million multi-annual allocation to the FAI to support the development of a modern and professional academy system that will provide the structures and pathways required to support future generations of Irish players, male and female, and maximise the potential of Irish football. Specific details as to how this investment will be rolled out will be set out in due course by the FAI and Sport Ireland.

The development of football is fundamentally a matter for the FAI, which, like all governing bodies of sport, is an independent, autonomous body that is responsible for the organisation and development of its own sport.

While the FAI has sought significant State funding to support its academy development plans, it is important to note the sizeable financial support directed to the FAI and to football more generally over the past few years. We have seen some €75 million in State funding allocated to the FAI between 2019 and 2024, including €30 million specifically to support football development and aimed at promoting participation in football by young people, with the balance of funding comprising Covid-specific and energy supports to the FAI and the wider football sector. In terms of State support for the development of facilities, more than €100 million in capital funding was allocated to Irish football in the second half of 2024. Under the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, €54 million was allocated in November of last year to football stadium projects at Finn Harps, Dalymount Park, Sligo Rovers and Wexford FC. I am pleased to note the recent approval by Dublin City Council of a financing proposal that should allow construction of a new Dalymount stadium to begin in 2027. In addition, we have seen €50 million allocated from the community sports and equipment fund last year to develop grassroots club facilities nationwide.

Considerable financial support has been provided by the State for the development of football in Ireland, particularly through the 2020-23 memorandum of understanding, which was also updated at the end of last year, when a new memorandum was signed with €6 million per annum in funding for the period from 2024 to 2027, with the majority of that going towards the FAI's youth field sports grants. Those grants are aimed at developing the grassroots of the game, improving coaching and playing standards, growing participation numbers and embracing communities outside of the traditional base of the sport.

Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein)
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The investment is welcome. My concern is that if you look at many of the sports capital projects, clubs put in an application for €100 million and they get €50 million. The reality is that they cannot deliver that project because they do not have what they need to deliver out on the project. They were looking for €4.5 million to make the project work. My concern is that the €3 million will not allow them to finish out that project, the development of academies, in the way that is required to make it work into the future. I always believe it is an investment. It is not a grant or some handout; it is an investment. It is investment in communities and Irish football. We have great football people, but I am concerned that if they do not have the full allocation that they requested and that they need to make it work, falling short of that figure will hamper them. That is my concern.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Mark Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State for his response.