Ar an ábhar sin, ba mhaith liom tús a chur le mo chuid focail le buíochas a ghabhadh leis na daoine atá ag obair go deonach sna clubanna ar fad sa tír agus atá ag déanamh an-obair le daoine óga agus ag cur spraoi ar fáil do na daoine. Is dóigh go bhfuil siad ag obair chomh maith ar son ár gcóras sláinte toisc go bhfuil siad ag tabhairt aire do na páistí agus ag tabhairt deis dóibh a bheith aclaí ina bpobail féin. I commend all those who volunteer in our clubs throughout the country in whatever sport. Tonight we are talking about soccer. My first sport of preference is GAA - Gaelic football and hurling- but I am a big soccer follower as well. If I am not wrong, it is the game that is most played across the country throughout communities. Tonight, when we are talking about the game we should think of all those volunteers who put their time into the coaching and administration of clubs and who keep the show on the road. It is fantastic to see the revival of our national team. That has been noted by many Members. Both national ladies teams and our gents teams are doing well. That has had an impact on attendances at League of Ireland games. I have gone to a number of Galway United games recently and attendances are high. The club is making great efforts to try to generate further interest. It recently had a night where they invited all the juvenile soccer clubs in the community to attend a game and it was very well attended. Unfortunately, Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, is gone. One of the games I recently attended, Galway United beat Sligo Rovers 1-0. That was a Connacht derby so it was a very well received result in Galway. One of the issues I am concerned about in terms of the League of Ireland is that there does seem to be a significant gap between the resources available to clubs in Dublin compared to provincial clubs. Most of the provincial clubs are in the lower division - the first division - be they Treaty United in Limerick, Cork City, etc. Cork is a big city. There are a certain number of clubs that go between both leagues but it seems to be dominated by the Dublin clubs and that might be because they have greater resources. Unfortunately, Galway United does not have its own training facilities and it has been a League of Ireland club since the late 1970s. It relies on the junior clubs like Salthill Devon FC, Mervue United AFC and others throughout the city to provide it with training facilities. That is a great concern in terms of the future of the club and how it continues to operate. Similarly, it does not own Terryland Park, even though there might be a change in that. It has a long-term lease and use of the facility. We might need to look at how we support League of Ireland clubs in provincial towns more. I say that in the full knowledge that in the latest budget the Minister of State secured significant investment in League of Ireland academies, which was welcomed by all the clubs. We possibly have not utilised soccer to the full degree as a mechanism or tool for inclusion and integration of new people who have come to the country. It is a universal game. It is played internationally. It does not recognise boundaries. Everyone is familiar with the rules. Maybe we should look at soccer as a vehicle for the enhancement and further integration of different nationalities of people who come to make Ireland their home. There is a great opportunity for us to do that in soccer. In the programme for Government we have committed ourselves to an audit of all urban areas in the country to see the availability of playing space for all sports in those urban areas. It is crucial we do that as soon as possible. One of the communications I receive most frequently from soccer clubs is a lack of playing facilities. That is particularly the case in the west where it rains much more significantly that in the east of the country. It is a winter sport. A lot of the playing facilities that the local authority has must be closed on regular occasions during the winter. That limits the opportunity for games and for children and adults to play. We need to work closer with local authorities. In my local authority there is a soccer club, Knocknacarra FC. It uses the local authority facility. The facility was upgraded around eight or nine years ago. It was a fantastic new facility. It was an all-weather facility and floodlit. There was a significant investment. However, the club is paying for that investment. It was supported by the Department but the club is paying in the region of €40,000 a year to the local authority to use that facility. For the type of relationship that should exist between a club and a local authority, that amount is excessive. That is an objective for the programme for Government. We need to do it. We need to look at where in the country we are limited in terms of sporting facilities, particularly in urban areas, and see where we can access land because there is not a wide availability of land in those urban areas. We all know that it is difficult for a voluntary club to try to get the necessary finances to purchase land. We need to look at more municipal facilities. We need to look at the local authorities and we need to encourage local authorities to provide more facilities in the areas where there is high demand. The performance of the national teams has led to an increased interest in the game and that can only be good for our communities.

Sentiment score: 0.20