The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport provides funding to the FAI on an annual basis. I understand it is more than €6 million. Can the Minister of State ascertain why 30 acres of land in Glanmire, Cork, which was leased to the FAI by Cork County Council in 2017, has remained idle? What progress has been made by the Department, the FAI and the county council to bring these lands into use for sports activities? Will he make a statement? I am raising this issue because these lands were purchased by Cork County Council more than 25 years ago, when the Cork-Dublin road was being built, and have been vacant since. In 2013 or 2014, the council decided it would lease these 30 acres to the FAI to build a new facility for the development of soccer in the region. The lease was signed in 2017. It is ten years later and not a sod has been turned. I got then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to come to Glanmire in 2023 where we met 18 of the sports clubs. As a result of that meeting, the FAI started negotiations again with the county council. My understanding is that they came to an agreement that 12.5 acres would go back to the local soccer club, but despite the fact I wrote to the chief executive of the county council on 5 May, and sent a follow-up letter and made a follow-up phone call, I cannot get a reply from the county council about what is proposed for these lands. My understanding is that the FAI does not intend to use them. Glanmire has a population of more than 20,000. The Minister of State was there recently in Vienna Woods where he met sports organisations to talk about applying for grants. How can they apply for grants if they do not have grounds or planning permission? A Government Department is paying out money to the FAI, which is hoarding this land, and a local authority is sitting on it and not doing anything with it. There are 20,000 people living in Glanmire and 1,000 houses and apartments are being built there at the moment. We have Sarsfields GAA and camogie clubs, Glanmire GAA club, the football club, soccer clubs and rugby clubs. There are a lot of clubs there that do not have adequate access to facilities and there is not even planning permission for the 30 acres. If it were to start in the morning, it would still be a good 12 months down the road. The Department is still giving out money to the FAI and not calling it to account for getting the land from a Government agency, the local authority, and leaving it to sit idle, while clubs are now refusing to take in new members because they do not have capacity for them. It is time for the Department to step in. There is an athletics club in north Cork which got all the clubs together and they got €2 million in grants, and rightly so, because they got everyone together. The clubs in Glanmire have tried the same thing and still we are not making any progress on this. In August 2023, then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, was there. It is now three years later and not one thing has happened in those three years, despite the fact the issue was raised publicly and followed up by me and other public representatives. The Department can hold the FAI to account in this case. Why has it taken three years to make any progress? Even if it is possible to put it out to clubs for tender, that will take six months and then it will have to go through the planning process. It is time for the Department to intervene and deal with this issue.

Sentiment score: 0.06

I am absolutely astonished at that reply. The county council told councillors that it was leasing 12.5 acres to Riverstown FC rather than the full site. What the FAI is telling the Minister is totally different. State agencies, the Minister of State's Department, the county council and the FAI, which gets funding from the Department, are all involved and I cannot get a clear answer. I am getting one answer from the Department, which it is getting from the FAI, and we are getting a different answer from Cork County Council. This is State land that is lying idle. The population of Glanmire is growing at a phenomenal rate. One thousand new houses are being built. The Minister of State's Department agreed to provide funding to the FAI back in 2017 or 2018. This was never taken up by the FAI. That is not the Department's fault but the FAI was not asked any questions about bringing this land back into use for sporting activities in Glanmire. There are 30 acres lying idle. Not a sod has been turned and no planning application has been made. We are now getting mixed messages about what is actually going on. I am not happy with this answer. The Minister of State can say that to the FAI. I also ask his Department to get clarification directly from the county council. The Minister of State is involved in developing sports facilities. Most of the population that will use this facility live in the city. There should therefore be a joint approach to developing these lands between the Department, the county council and the city council. We need them. Soccer clubs and GAA clubs are turning people away. Schools are under pressure. Some of the schools down there have over 1,000 students. They have some facilities but not facilities at the scale they would like. I ask that the Department now give priority to this issue. There are 1,000 houses being built. We are collecting planning fees and all sorts of contributions for these developments to go ahead but we are not providing any facilities of any description. Both the Department and the local authorities are guilty of not dealing with this issue.

Sentiment score: -0.04