I sincerely welcome these statements on football as an opportunity to talk about the sport I have always, and will always, love. Some of my fondest memories are of growing up in the terraces among the fans, come hail, rain or shine, supporting our home team of Drogheda United through the good times and the bad. If the emotion and love of football supporters - League of Ireland supporters, crucially - have for their teams was manifested in infrastructure, we would have more than 20 state-of-the-art stadiums around the country, an adequate academy structure and enough community football pitches for the hundreds of grassroots teams and the tens of thousands of girls, boys, women and men who play. However, this Government and every Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government prior to it have never adequately supported Irish football. Their own real concern has been where to show up for a photograph when the senior men's national team is performing well. Government TDs could all probably name the men's team from the World Cup in the USA in 1994 but I have every confidence most on Government benches would struggle to name many of the players in the current senior women's national team. Roy Keane was good but, by God, he is no Katie McCabe. If Ireland is ever going to have success on the international stage, we need to support every local team and every local community from the small team format at under six and seven right through to senior men's and women's teams in the League of Ireland. If we want the League of Ireland to be competitive and, very importantly, self-financing, then we need to support the FAI's carefully put together plans. If we want the League of Ireland stadiums to be adequate for use and safe for fans, we need to back the FAI's facilities and infrastructure vision and strategy. No one expects anything to happen overnight - that plan is a 15-year investment plan to address chronic underinvestment in Irish football - but sufficient investment has to start now. That is the positive outlook for the future of football but it is not the reason for these statements today. We are here solely as a consequence of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan's public denigration of the League of Ireland and its fans in recent weeks. His solo run, plague upon all their houses, collective punishment, sneering and classist approach to the League of Ireland after the Dundalk versus Drogheda match was utterly shameful. The Minister had to utilise Google Maps to even find his way to a League of Ireland ground to open the new AstroTurf pitch in Oriel Park and to watch the highly anticipated live derby between Drogheda and Dundalk. The Minister posted a video that showed fan's pyrotechnics prior to kick-off to highlight what a great occasion it was. That video clearly showing pyro is still in his social media today. It was all fun and games until it was not. Is it any wonder he is a gift to Waterford Whispers News? Regrettably, the new pitch was damaged by significant scorch marks caused by a small minority of fans throwing flares onto the pitch, which Drogheda United paid to repair in full. The Minister's response was to mete out collective punishment by announcing a pause in all AstroTurf funding for League of Ireland clubs. As the Minister of State, Deputy McConalogue, who is responsible for sport, confirmed, he was not made aware of this and stated here in the Chamber that he did not agree with it. Not only did the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, succeed in vilifying the many great supporters of the League of Ireland for the actions of a few, he also succeeded in undermining his colleague in his capacity as Minister of State for sport. I have never condoned the use of pyro or flares at matches. Any right-minded football supporter at the League of Ireland would strongly condemn what happened in Oriel Park, and so do I. There is no justification for any damage to facilities, particularly when investment in infrastructure is sparse and hard won. I tell the Minister of State here now, and I hope the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, is watching from wherever is more important to him this evening, I am a League of Ireland fan all my life and I am not a plague on anybody's house. My family hails from deep in League of Ireland history and none of them are plagues on anybody's houses. Neither are all the good people and volunteers who keep the League of Ireland clubs running in spite of decades of underfunding from this and previous governments. Sadly, pyro is not a new problem for our league and it has posed challenges across the board in recent years for both the FAI and clubs to individually try to curtail. As somebody who has volunteered in a club for many years, I can attest to the challenges all clubs have in trying to make their grounds more secure. However, instead of jumping for the sake of headlines, I remain steadfast in my commitment to working with the league and other stakeholders to try to strengthen our resolve against this mindless behaviour. Government, on the other hand, has done nothing for decades to tackle this problem. The FAI and the League of Ireland office in particular have a long history of working with clubs to highlight the dangers of pyrotechnics and making sure stadiums are safe. This is made increasingly difficult by the poor infrastructure and lack of support from successive governments, including this one. From 2013 right up to this year, the League of Ireland has run a series of education and awareness events supported by An Garda Síochána. I have attended many of these myself, so I know at first hand the conscious efforts made to try to curtail this growing culture. The League of Ireland men's Premier Division clubs collectively spent over €2.7 million last year in safety and security for their games. This is a significant spend and highlights the fact that all clubs take safety and security very seriously. The Government, by its own track record, does not and it has little or no interest in investment in infrastructure to aid clubs or the League of Ireland in their endeavours. The Government's only interest sparked was an opportunity for a Minister to make himself relevant in a sport that one week did not know who he was to its supporters the following week displaying banners at matches telling him not so politely where to go. The Department of education in 1996 published a code of practice guidance document for safety at sports grounds, and there has been no updated version since despite all the changes in society, technology, infrastructure and, in more recent years, a growing culture of pyro. Before Government decides to vilify League of Ireland supports ever again, it should practise what it preaches and update its own code of practice for safety at sports ground into this millennium. We all want safer stadium facilities. We want places where players young and old can play and thrive. The game is growing and attendances and support are growing. Overall last year, in competitions featuring League of Ireland teams, there was an 11.7% rise in spectators with a total of 1.1 million attending games. They achieved all this despite being underfunded. The momentum is there and it could be the easiest win of the Minister of State's Ministry to invest in the future of Irish football and take the credit for watching it bloom. To realise the full potential of football in this country, facilities have to be key. The FAI-branded League of Ireland facilities are archaic with only one stadium reaching more than 10,000 capacity, while Ireland is among the lowest in the EU for stadium projects. While average attendance has risen to over 4,000, many grounds rely on temporary structures and outdated stands. My own club is the same and has not been updated since my own grandfather built it by hand in the 1970s with the help of tradesmen in the town on their evenings and weekends. Yet, despite infrastructural constraints, the League of Ireland contributed €1.64 million to the Irish economy in 2023. Just imagine what that could bring in if significant investment by the Government was channelled into facilities. The future of Irish football lies in the Minister of State's hands and I implore him to take a realistic reflection of Government's investment in our sport. We need genuine tangible investment in the stadiums and academies if we want to see glory days again. I wish to touch on comments made recently by me in my capacity as Sinn Féin's spokesperson on sport opposing Ireland playing Israel in the upcoming UEFA Nations League match. This, as everybody is aware by now, came at huge personal cost to me and led to me being removed from my role as chairperson of the football club I have grown up in and spent my life loving. Although this broke my heart and is something I am still trying to process and rebuild, I proudly and staunchly reiterate Sinn Féin's opposition, and my own, I might add, to Ireland playing Israel in this fixture. Israel is an apartheid state which has engaged in ethnic cleansing and genocide. Its slaughter of footballers and bombing of football pitches cannot be accepted and normalised. Front-line Israeli soldiers with blood on their hands lining out against our international team cannot be accepted or normalised. Sportswashing cannot be accepted or normalised. I am proud to have stood up and to speak up despite the consequences. Any representative of this Government who endorses this game proceeding needs to give themselves a good shake and be aware that they are going down on the wrong side of history.

Sentiment score: 0.28