I am wearing my Shelbourne top tonight because that was my boyhood club where I spent a lot of my Friday nights both as a kid and an adult. A couple of years ago, the fans of Shelbourne were at risk of losing Tolka Park, which the club had grown in, and embarked on a campaign to save the ground. It was an inspiring campaign that was fan-driven and culminated when Shels won the league. It was genuinely heartwarming, so I pay tribute to the fans of Shelbourne FC. A couple of embarrassing statements have emanated from the Minister of State's Department, though admittedly not from him. A few weeks ago, even I had to step back when I read in the newspaper that the launch of Kerry FC's pitch, which had received €380,000 in well-deserved funding, had to be delayed because the Minister could not attend. It turns out that the Department has a policy requiring clubs receiving over €100,000 to give a month's notice so Ministers can attend openings. This is neither the Minister of State's money nor the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan's money but the people's money. Launches do not necessarily need to be delayed so that Ministers can attend. It led me to have a little step back because while Ministers are very quick to go cut ribbons, they are not so quick to show up when things are a little more difficult. It is more difficult to launch pitches in an urban city centre environment because the clubs do not have the space. They do not have the space from public land. They do not have the long-term leases by which they could avail of the sports capital grant. That is a structural failure that has huge consequences. I have raised in the Chamber on any number of occasions that kids in the north and south inner city of Dublin have literally nowhere to play an 11-a-side football game. I raised this during Leaders' Questions a few weeks ago and highlighted the fact that, per capita, Dublin received only €26.50 per person under the sports capital grant. The national average is €54 per person and counties like Leitrim, which are very deserving, get over €100 per person from the sports capital grant. Dublin city, the place where Troy Parrott learned to play sports and where we have any number of national heroes, does not have an 11-a-side football pitch. I understand that the Pobal deprivation index was designed to weigh applications for capital sports grants but you cannot weigh an application that has not been submitted. The application cannot be submitted if clubs do not own their own land or have long-term leases. My appeal to the Minister of State is based on grassroots football. It does not matter to me if a kid goes off and plays for Ireland, lifts cups or anything like that. Football is my sport, but sport in general is the means by which we can galvanise a young person, give them the confidence, get them to do teamwork and have the role models like I had in Sheriff YC, and the managers who made sure many years ago when I was a kid that I was home on a Friday night for the match on a Saturday. When you have pitch bookings that are consistently being called off because they are water damaged or because the pitches you are playing on miles away from where you live are overbooked, it means we lose the capacity to give those kids the same chance to just play a game on an AstroTurf pitch the way they can in so many other communities around the country. We need to really look at how we allocate the sports capital grant and give more weighting to clubs that do not have the capacity to own their own land or have leases, or even moreso, invest in municipal facilities. If Dublin City Council were to avail of the sports capital grant, which it has done, it has to give 30 cent on every euro it receives. I want Dublin City Council to be building houses. I want it to be confronting dereliction. If I am constantly on to Dublin City Council to build municipal sports infrastructure and if it were to avail of those grants, that money would be taken away from other immediate needs of the city. I understand that an evaluation of the sports capital fund is going on. We need innovation and a somewhat different approach to level the playing field. Communities that I represent in Dublin Central, that Deputy Jen Cummins represents in Dublin South-Central and, I am sure, other communities, particularly in urban environments, do not have the leases and do not own the land. That creates a problem with huge deficits. I raised this matter with the Tánaiste a couple of weeks ago and he understood the issue and said we would arrange a meeting together. Understandably, I am waiting for that meeting as there have been other things going on. If we could sit down to see how best we could achieve that aim, it would be to the benefit of kids who simply love football and do not have anywhere to play it at the moment. I understand the Minister of State would be open to that.

Sentiment score: 0.14