150. Deputy Shane Moynihan asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport when the next round of the community sports facilities fund will open; the criteria that will be used to assess applications; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16793/26]

Sentiment score: 0.01

I fully support Deputy Dolan's remarks regarding the importance of female participation. However, we also need to take account of socio-economic disadvantage. Sports, such as boxing and football, are great at enabling social cohesion, bringing people on a path which will make sure that they have a fulfilling future in terms of youth diversion and so on. That is why I am particularly keen to support the likes of Collinstown FC in my constituency, which needs access to an all-weather pitch. On nine weekends of this football year, pitches have not been playable because of the weather. This underlines the importance of all-weather pitches. Local authorities and ETBs have a really important role to play in the context of looking at their suite of strategic assets and considering how they can make them available to teams across the constituency. That is something we should plan for and incorporate in this round of sports capital funding in order to ensure that those State agencies buy in and make these facilities available. It is important to support clubs like Collinstown that are performing a very important social function as well as an integrative function when it comes to bringing boys and girls into sport.

Sentiment score: 0.45