It has been a long time since our international teams gave us such pride and pleasure. I want to pay tribute to our international women’s team in particular, which pulled off a great win last night. Good luck to the team next Saturday, and indeed to the men as well for the future. The visceral sense of excitement in the north inner city over recent weeks, particularly because of Troy Parrott, has been something to behold. I am very proud to stand here as a member of Bohemians FC. The turnaround we have seen with that club over the past number of years, which previously faced bankruptcy, which now has a high level of demand among its fans to attend matches week after week and whose the women’s team reached the FAI club final last year, has been nothing short of incredible. I want to use my time to talk not about where players are now but where they came from. That is not in any way to take away from the conversations that are desperately needed, particularly in the context of women's football, and the large disparity that exists in terms of resourcing and respect for women. It will be ten years next year since the international women's team had to go on strike. With regard to grassroots football, across the city and beyond, football leagues in catch-up mode because vital weeks were lost in January and February as a result of weather conditions. There were teams that could not play because of the rain. This was a cruel reminder of how poorly served boys and girls in this city and beyond are because of a lack of playing facilities such as all-weather pitches. In the time I have left, I want to make the point about how badly designed the capital sports programme funding is and how it is very much designed for rural clubs as opposed to urban clubs, many of which cannot buy sites or access long-term leases. I know of one club, namely Drumcondra AFC, which has a very proud tradition and which is more than 100 years old. That club had to partner with a private sports club and a school in order to put forward a sports capital funding application in the most recent funding round. Those involved applied for €200,000 to convert defunct tennis courts into all-weather soccer pitches for their teams. They got approximately half of what they requested in their funding application. When that happened, the private sports club withdrew its co-operation. As a community, we do not have those all-weather soccer pitches now. When I rang Killarney and said that this was problem because the private club got funding for one purpose and is using it for another, I was told "That's the way it is." That needs to change. If clubs are being allocated money for specific purposes, it needs to be used for such purposes. If I had more time, I could talk about much more about sports capital funding. We need to overhaul the way in which that funding is used in order that clubs, particularly those in disadvantaged communities, get the benefits they need.

Sentiment score: 0.09