I thank the Minister of State with responsibility for sport for being with us today. Earlier I heard Ministers being criticised for turning up at high-profile events. In the past I have also heard Ministers being criticised for not turning up at high-profile events. It is the work that happens at local level that I am most pleased with. I thank the Minister of State for coming to my constituency where he visited McKelvey Celtic and Tolka Rovers. There was no press or hoo-ha; it was about informing the clubs of what was available to them in terms of supports and grants and talking to them about the challenges they had. I thank the Minister of State for that and I know his predecessors in the role, Deputies Chambers and Thomas Byrne, made similar visits to different clubs. I will not get into naming all of them because I will forget some. David Courell of the FAI circulated a statement in advance of this debate. The number of people involved speaks for itself, with 245,000 registered players, 80,000 volunteers and 1.5 million fans engaging. There is no doubt of the benefit that soccer provides to Ireland and to communities throughout the country. Other Deputies have spoken about the issues of sports capital grants, land and the opportunity to develop facilities. It is really important, and the Minister of State said it when he was out with us, that clubs do not have to own land to apply for the sports grants. There are equipment grants available to clubs and I would say to every club not to believe the myth that they need to own their land. There is some funding available to them. It might not be the greater capital amount but the lower-level equipment grant is available. This is where the city council and other local authorities need to step in. There need to be more municipal facilities. The Minister of State's predecessor, Deputy Thomas Byrne, was out in Kildonan Park where Finglas Celtic and Finglas United both use a new fantastic all-weather facility put in by the city council. The council needs to be developing more of these throughout the city. I encourage the Minister of State to contact the office of the chief executive in Dublin City Council to ask whether there will be all-weather pitches for Dublin city this year. There are no planning applications ready at this point. The question is whether it would be ready even if an application were to be successful. I am really worried that we have an opportunity to provide more municipal all-weather soccer facilities in our public parks, animating our public parks, and we should be doing this. I am passionate about football at school-age level. I have met many clubs involved at this level. I am concerned about the proposed merger of the north Dublin schools league with the North Eastern Regional League. Many of the clubs would like to be in the Dublin and District Schoolboys League, DDSL, so they play other clubs in their own areas and do not have to travel to Louth, Monaghan or Meath. It does not make any sense for clubs from my area to be travelling that distance given the cost. The issue is that the DDSL is under pressure for referees and resources. It is under pressure with regard to how many teams can come in. If the Minister of State could intervene with the DDSL, and if there could be a way of providing some funding through the FAI, I would appreciate if the Minister of State could try to make sure that children in these clubs can play with their own school friends in their own areas.

Sentiment score: 0.20