2026-04-15

Before I invite the Minister of State to take the debate, I welcome Professor David Burn, who is president of the world Parkinson's association. We are hosting a three-day international conference here in Powerscourt. He and his members are most welcome. Deputy Grealish is hosting them this evening.

I very much welcome the opportunity to address the House this evening on matters relating to football, the most popular team sport in Ireland. Football can take us from the absolute peaks of delight, such as when Troy Parrott's toe-poke delivered the miracle of Budapest, to the absolute depths of disappointment that we all know too well too recently. It brings whole communities together. It provides social and emotional networks and a common language that we can all understand. It is hugely important for physical well-being and good mental health and is also usually great fun. That is why we all care so much about it and I hope that today's discussions will be beneficial to growing the game further. At the outset, I pay tribute to the Irish senior women's and men's teams for their truly inspiring performances over the past few months. The double success of the men's team against Portugal and Hungary during one of the greatest weeks in Irish football history last November gave supporters a tremendous lift. While the recent World Cup play-off semi-final against the Czech Republic in Prague ended in defeat, I am sure I speak for all in the House in congratulating Heimir Hallgrímsson and his troops on those performances. They have lifted the nation and breathed new life into Irish football, reconnecting with supporters through their honesty, passion, never-say-die attitude and pride in the green jersey. The senior women's Nations League play-off victory over Belgium last October was equally inspiring. While they recently suffered narrow defeats to France and the Netherlands in the World Cup qualifiers, their performances against higher ranking teams gives us much to be optimistic about. Under manager Carla Ward and captain Katie McCabe, the team is transforming women's football, serving as inspirational role models for young girls, as was once again demonstrated by their wonderful performance against Poland last night, winning 3-2 away from home. We wish them well in the return fixture on Saturday, 18 April, in the Aviva Stadium. The Football Association of Ireland, FAI, is the recognised national governing body for association football in Ireland. The Government, through my Department and Sport Ireland, the statutory agency for the development of sport, has a long-standing funding relationship with the FAI to support the development of football in Ireland. In recent years, the FAI has made significant progress in reforming its operations, including through implementation of the recommendations and conditions set out in the memorandums of understanding, MOUs, between the Government and the association. Following the financial collapse of the FAI in 2019, the Government and the FAI, in January 2020, agreed an MOU that included an enhanced funding package of €5.8 million per annum for the period 2020 to 2023, underpinned by 163 governance reform recommendations and conditions. During the lifetime of this agreement, the FAI made significant progress on reform, with 159 of the 163, or 98%, MOU recommendations and conditions either completed or phase 1 completed. As the FAI's financial position remained challenging, a second MOU was signed in December 2024, which increased State funding to the FAI to €6 million per annum for the period from 2024 to 2027. The bulk of this funding goes towards the FAI's youth field sports grants, which are aimed at encouraging and creating more opportunities for young people to participate in football through coaching and games development supports. The youth field sports programme is based on an ethos of developing the grassroots of the game, growing participation numbers, embracing communities outside of the traditional base of the sport and improving coaching and playing standards. The current MOU contains 16 recommendations and conditions for the FAI, including completing any outstanding recommendations and conditions from the previous MOU; maintaining governance reforms introduced under the previous MOU; providing information and reports to Sport Ireland to facilitate oversight of the MOU; and cascading governance reform to affiliates and grassroots. While the FAI has introduced significant governance reform at a national level, the broader football ecosystem remains complex and fragmented, with large representative structures, multiple committees and inconsistent governance models across its affiliates, leagues and grassroot clubs. I very much welcome the FAI's commitment to cascade good governance and structures throughout the entire football ecosystem. To achieve this, a comprehensive review of league and affiliate governance will be undertaken by the association, including a review of grassroots league structures to deliver stable and geographically logical leagues for women, men and children. Training and resources will be provided by the FAI throughout the football pyramid to support this reform. The FAI continues to strengthen governance, safeguarding and operational standards across Irish football through two interconnected national accreditation frameworks. The FAI club mark is a national accreditation system for governance, safeguarding, club administration, volunteer services and structures, and long-term player development. The FAI league mark is the complementary accreditation programme designed to raise governance and football operations standards at league level. The FAI has significantly expanded its governance support infrastructure across both programmes. Sport Ireland and my Department continue to engage with the FAI on progressing the recommendations and conditions set out in the current MOU. The first MOU provided the association with financial stability but also brought about the necessary governance reforms to allow it to rebuild itself. The current MOU will allow it to further progress its corporate governance reform agenda while at the same time giving it the financial support needed to continue to develop football across the country. Continued Government investment is essential to further increase participation levels in all sports across all sectors of society. In 2018, total funding to sport from my Department was €111 million and the national sports policy committed to doubling that figure by 2027. That target was actually achieved in 2025. In 2026, we will invest over €300 million in sport, an increase of €67 million or 28.7% compared with 2025. The Government has invested well over €1 billion in sports infrastructure and development in Ireland since 2018. The return on this investment in terms of community participation, inclusion, integration and physical and mental well-being is substantial. It is important to note the sizeable financial support directed by the Government to the FAI and to football more generally over the past few years. The State allocated approximately €80 million in current funding to the FAI between 2019 and 2025 to support football development and grow participation. This included a total of €33.7 million in Covid-specific supports in the period from 2020 to 2022. It also included €1.3 million under the sports energy support scheme to help alleviate the impact of increased energy costs for clubs. In addition to its core funding grant of €6 million, the FAI was allocated €300,000 in 2025 under the Government and Sport Ireland's women in sport programme to enhance the delivery, recognition, promotion and development of participation and leadership initiatives and opportunities for women and girls in football. It also received €200,000 in 2025 in dormant accounts funding to support participation programmes for those who are economically, socially or educationally disadvantaged, or people with disabilities. Significant capital funding has been granted to football projects across the country in recent years. My Department operates two capital funding programmes for sport, namely, the community sport facilities fund, CSFF, and the large-scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF. The CSFF, formerly known as the sports capital and equipment fund, is the primary means of providing Government funding to sport and community organisations at local, regional and national levels. The fund aims to foster an integrated and planned approach to the development of sports and physical recreation facilities and assists the purchase of non-personal sports equipment. The LSSIF was established under the national sports policy, published in 2018, to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects, typically those requiring investments greater than the maximum available under the CSFF. Since 2015, approximately €192 million has been allocated to football projects under all sports capital programmes to support the development of grassroots soccer facilities nationwide. Just over €96 million of this was allocated under the LSSIF and almost €96 million was allocated to over 1,500 football projects under the CSFF. Over €250 million was allocated to more than 3,000 community sports clubs and facilities in 2024 from the 2023 round of the fund, representing the largest ever investment in sports facilities in communities across the country. Over €50 million of this was allocated to football clubs and a total of 536 football projects. This funding has facilitated improvements in the quality and quantity of football facilities in virtually every village, town and city. In line with previous rounds of the fund, a review of the current funding round has been undertaken and will be finalised shortly. I have asked my Department to prepare for a further round of the CSFF in 2026, which I expect to open early in the summer. I encourage all football clubs to prepare for this and to ensure applications are fully aligned with the goals and guidelines of the fund. It is anticipated that this next round will particularly target areas and sports that have been underinvested in over the years. A total of €297 million has been invested through LSSIF across 68 projects. The 2018 round awarded €124 million to 33 of those, with €173 million awarded in November 2024 to 35 projects following record demand. Of the €297 million allocated under the LSSIF to date, €96 million was awarded to 18 football projects that are either directly sponsored by the FAI or incorporate football elements. Under the LSSIF round in 2018, eight football projects were allocated €11.8 million in funding. They included Atlantic Technological University, iRos, Cavan Regional Sports Campus, Thurles Regional Sports Campus, Dalymount Park, East Galway Sports Campus, Finn Harps and the Munster Centre of Excellence in Glanmire. Under LSSIF 2024, €84.3 million was awarded to ten football projects, which were Dalymount Park, Sligo Rovers Stadium Development, Atlantic Technological University Letterkenny Regional Sports Activity Hub, Cork Northwest Community Sports Hub, Wexford Football Club Hub, Tallaght Stadium, Marlay Sports Hub, Cavan Regional Sports Campus, Mayo Community Sports Campus and Seafield Sports & Community Facility. All projects under LSSIF 2024 are currently being progressed in accordance with the infrastructure guidelines set out by the Government. Regarding a future round of the LSSIF, our current focus is on ensuring project delivery under the first two rounds, but we intend to open a new round later in 2027. The programme for Government confirms that we will maintain sports funding to get more people participating in all levels of sport, particularly targeting cohorts in society where there is a lower than average participation level, including people with disabilities and older people. In this context, and having regard to other relevant commitments in the programme for Government, it is important we take a strategic approach to capital investment. In the context of the development of the next ten-year national sports policy, a process I recently initiated, capital investment must deliver on the emerging policy priorities. This could take the form of more targeted investment while allowing for some demand-led funding. Such targeted funding, for example, prioritises the delivery of swimming infrastructure as highlighted in the recently published Swimming Pool Gap Analysis Report. Other areas for prioritised investment could be socially deprived areas of our inner cities and facilities therein. We should also consider priority funding for historically underfunded sports such as boxing and sporting organisations that do not own or that lease their land or premises. There may also be a need for an enhanced role for local authorities as we seek to provide sporting facilities proximate to new housing developments, while also taking account of the sporting preferences of our new and emerging communities. Given the challenges of increased demand and a growing population, I consider there is real merit in the development of municipally backed, shared, multi-use facilities and I encourage national governing bodies, NGBs, of sports and local authorities to collaborate in this regard. As part of budget 2026, I was pleased to announce a €3 million multi-annual allocation to support the development of a modern and professional football academy system that will provide the structures and pathways required to support future generations of Irish players, male and female, and maximise the potential of Irish football. This is on foot of the programme for Government commitment to exploring new mechanisms for the creation of football academies. This builds on the additional funding of €1 million provided by the Department to the FAI in 2024, which enabled it to produce a detailed report on the League of Ireland academies system. That funding also enabled the appointment by the FAI of an academies administrator to support the development of new academy programmes and to track their impact. The League of Ireland Academy Global Findings Report benchmarked Irish football academies against international standards based on an audit of existing academy structures and needs and provided a basis on which to commit to multi-annual funding support. The report revealed that Irish football talent development is significantly behind international standards, particularly when compared with nations ranked 51 to 100 by FIFA. The report outlines 50 recommendations which, if implemented in the coming years, should create a strong academy system that would underpin a sustainable domestic football league and, ultimately, strengthen the quality of players coming through to the national teams. As well as consolidating key insights, the report presents strategic recommendations to guide future progress aimed at building a robust, performance-driven environment where the next generation of Irish footballers can thrive. The report will enable informed decision-making and long-term strategic planning for elite player development and will guide future, long-term investment rather than short-term fixes. Alignment between the FAI, the league, clubs, the Government and other stakeholders, is crucial to the successful implementation of the report’s recommendations. To deliver proper oversight of the ongoing development of the League of Ireland academies, the FAI proposes to establish an academy oversight committee, a subcommittee of its national leagues committee. The FAI has invited a Sport Ireland representative to join this committee. I am pleased to update the House on the significant progress made to date on the League of Ireland academy investment since the announcement of funding in budget 2026. There has been an exceptionally strong response from across the football community to the League of Ireland academy recruitment panels. The FAI received almost 300 applications for the roles of academy director and head of academy coaching. This demonstrates both the scale of interest and the growing confidence in the League of Ireland academy system. Following the initial screening process, 50 applicants were shortlisted for the academy director role and 74 applicants for the head of academy coaching role. From this highly competitive process, 24 candidates were successfully appointed to the academy director panel and 32 candidates to the head of academy coaching panel. It is particularly encouraging to note that a significant proportion of applicants are young Irish coaches who have previously had to pursue opportunities abroad due to the limited domestic football industry. This investment in League of Ireland academies is now providing a credible pathway for these individuals to return home and build their careers within Irish football. The panels have now been formally communicated to eligible League of Ireland clubs, many of whom have already commenced their recruitment processes using these panels. This represents an important step in strengthening the overall academy structure and ensuring a consistent, high-quality approach to talent development across the league. The first appointees will be in position before the end of this month with others coming on stream throughout the year. However, the FAI wishes to highlight one area of concern. The number of female applicants across both roles was low, with a total of six applications received, representing approximately 2% of the overall applicant pool. The association has engaged with Sport Ireland on this matter and has provided feedback gathered from potential candidates who chose not to apply to better understand the barriers that may exist. While it is encouraging that one female applicant was successfully appointed to the academy director panel, this remains an area that requires focused attention. The FAI has also put in place a comprehensive programme of training and guidance for clubs to ensure they fully understand both the requirements and the expectations associated with delivering recruitment processes to the highest possible standard. This investment in capacity building has not only enhanced the quality and consistency of recruitment practices across clubs but has also strengthened the overall foundations of the wider football ecosystem, embedding better governance and professionalism at club level. Alongside the recruitment process, the FAI has developed a robust and comprehensive grant agreement framework. This sets out clear conditions for funding, including performance milestones, reporting requirements and governance standards. It ensures that public funding is subject to strong oversight, with clear accountability at club level and mechanisms in place to monitor delivery and intervene where necessary. This is a key safeguard for the Government and ensures that investment will translate into measurable outcomes. I am confident that the measures being implemented by the FAI will leave a lasting impact on the growth of the game nationwide. The continued growth of the League of Ireland is a credit to the FAI and the clubs. Growing on an annual basis, the league is thriving, with soaring popularity and attendance at games. Its competitive nature means that for fans in the stands and watching from home, every fixture now feels like it carries significant weight. It boasts a strong mix of exciting young talent and experienced older heads, which makes for some great games. Clearly, the League of Ireland is on the up and I have no doubt this positive trend will continue. In January, Mason Melia made the switch from St Patrick’s Athletic to Tottenham Hotspur, while Josh Honohan joined Lincoln City from Shamrock Rovers. While it is a loss for the League of Ireland to lose such potential, it proves that the division boasts serious quality. The return of 36-year-old James McClean to Derry City from Championship side Wrexham will also be a draw for supporters keen to see players who have performed on some of the biggest stages. One of the positive aspects of League of Ireland football is that it is still very much true to its roots and boasts a strong connection to its communities. While some competitions abroad may have lost their magic as commercialism takes them over, supporters of League of Ireland clubs can still enjoy an authentic matchday experience that perhaps cannot be found elsewhere. I am particularly pleased to see how the women’s domestic game has grown in recent years in the League of Ireland and generally. The FAI’s strategic cycle from 2022 to 2025 saw a 79% increase in participation among women and girls compared with the previous strategic cycle, which is a tremendous achievement. The FAI has been at the forefront in growing female participation in sport, building on the legacy of the women's national senior team competing at the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup and underpinned by its women and girls football action plan and targeted programmes like the In Her Boots campaign. There are now more women and girls playing football than ever before. Female participation in sport is an important element of our national sports policy and represents a core priority for me and my Department. The Government is committed to eliminating the gender participation gap in sport, which has been reduced to 2.8%, and to promoting a "sport for all" approach, aimed at ensuring that all persons can partake equally in sport regardless of gender. Sport Ireland’s women in sport policy supports national governing bodies as well as local sports partnerships, clubs, schools and communities in championing women and girls in sport, regardless of role or level or ability. Significant progress is being made in this regard, with increasing numbers of women and girls participating in sport and greater female participation and representation in the governance and leadership of sport in Ireland. Our women in sport funding programme has been in place since 2005 and over the past two decades, over €30 million has been invested in promoting gender equality in sport. In the past three years alone, Sport Ireland has allocated over €1 million to the FAI to support its women in sport participation programmes, from grassroots participation and coaching to leadership, officiating, volunteering and high performance. As Minister of State with responsibility for sport, I will continue to tackle issues to ensure that women’s sport reaches parity with its male equivalent and that females do not drop out of sport due to a lack of adequate training facilities or access to opportunities. I am steadfast in my commitment to continue to increase women’s sustained involvement across all sports and at every level, from grassroots to high performance. Media representation of women in sport remains uneven and greater efforts are needed to ensure women’s performances and stories receive equitable coverage. Sport Ireland recently provided the first insights from its gender representation in Irish sports media research, a comprehensive analysis of sports media in Ireland examining how women in sport are represented. Analysis of more than 30,000 sports news stories across television, radio, print and online media last year showed women remain significantly under-represented in Irish sports media. Sport Ireland has previously supported several initiatives to support former athletes transitioning to a career in the media, including training, workshops and internships. The research showed women accounted for just 15% of all sports journalists and that they were 1.5 times more likely than male journalists to cover women in sport. This landmark research serves as a powerful reminder of the visibility gaps that still exist and highlights the need to amplify women’s sport across every platform. I believe there is substantial public interest in women’s sport, and this is illustrated, for example, by Kate O’Connor being the third most visible athlete in media coverage in 2025, with Sarah Healy and Leona Maguire also featuring in the top 20. We have made significant strides with regards to participation and governance and the next barrier is visibility. Ultimately, coverage decisions are matters for the media and broadcasting organisations concerned and I am aware that the Future of Media Commission has called for the development of a diversity and inclusion strategy for sports reporting and broadcasting. It is essential that we increase the visibility and profile of our female athletes. Shining a spotlight on the achievements of women in sport is crucial as the heroes of today will inspire young girls to follow in their footsteps. The Sports Action Plan 2024-2027 contains a commitment to increase participation in sport among those with long-term illnesses or disabilities to 40% by 2027. Despite recent progress, there is an enduring participation gradient between persons with either long-term illnesses or disabilities and those without such illnesses or disabilities. The Irish sports monitor survey reports that this participation gap stood at 22% as of 2024. Both the Government and Sport Ireland are extremely committed to making this participation gap in sport a thing of the past. I was pleased that increased funding secured for sport in budget 2025 enabled Sport Ireland to appoint a disability in sport lead in February 2025. The role has the potential to be transformational and the disability in sport lead will work with national governing bodies, local sports partnerships and other sporting bodies to develop and promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in sport. Sport Ireland allocates €1.2 million at local level to fund a national network of sports inclusion disability officers, aligned to each of the 29 local sports partnerships in the country. The sports inclusion disability officers work in a co-ordinating capacity with all relevant stakeholders to increase and sustain participation opportunities for all people with disabilities. Sport Ireland has also allocated an additional €2.4 million for supporting disability sport-focused national governing bodies to continue their work in this area. This investment will help to ensure that anyone with a disability at any level, grassroots and above, can avail of their absolute right to enjoy and reap the benefits of sport and physical activity. We need to ensure that every person with a disability can step into a club, a pool, a pitch or a gym and feel that it is a place for them. A person’s disability should not be an obstacle to being physically active. The FAI has led this space for many years, beginning with the recruitment of a dedicated national lead in 2002 and the launch of its Football for All strategy in 2017. Football for All is a national programme using football as a tool for social inclusion, well-being and community development, ensuring participation is not limited by physical, sensory, intellectual or social barriers. With around 3,800 participants across 82 clubs, the programme provides a pathway from grassroots to elite level for various disability groups, including cerebral palsy, CP, amputee, deaf, blind and powerchair football. In January, I was delighted to join Muscular Dystrophy Ireland and the FAI in presenting six new wheelchairs to the Association of Irish Powerchair Football. It was truly inspiring to see the great work being done by the FAI in this regard and it was a pleasure to promote a project that so clearly demonstrated what sport could achieve when inclusivity was at its core. A new international sports diplomacy framework for enhancing the country's international engagement through sport was published last year. The resulting strategy was launched earlier this year and provides a comprehensive basis to advance Ireland’s sports diplomacy objectives. The hosting of major international sports events, such as the Ryder Cup in 2027 and the Euros in 2028, will be central to the implementation of the strategy by establishing Ireland as a sporting hub and building a global reputation as a premier sporting nation, fostering opportunities for international partnerships, cultural exchange and diaspora engagement. Major international sports events can play a key role in increasing sports participation, encourage domestic and international tourism and promoting Ireland as a destination for education and business opportunities. They present a wonderful opportunity to showcase Ireland and our world-class tourism and sports offering to Europe and the world. Last September’s first ever American National Football League game to be held in Ireland was a great example of this and provided a tremendous boost to the Irish economy. Through structured initiatives, the Government aims to leverage international sports events, like the UEFA Euro 2028 tournament, to boost participation levels in sport, together with building a lasting social, economic and sporting legacy for future generations. At the launch of Euro 2028 last year, it was confirmed that Ireland would host seven games during the tournament, including a quarter final. The Government will invest just over €92.9 million in supporting the event and it is anticipated that the tournament will generate €449 million of socioeconomic benefits for Ireland. This will be the one of the largest sporting events Ireland has ever staged. The hosting of the tournament is a unique opportunity for effective collaboration to realise a meaningful legacy for wider society and I am determined to ensure that there will be a lasting benefit to all communities. Ireland’s national legacy plans for the tournament are being developed in collaboration between my Department and the FAI. These plans will have targeted initiatives that are designed to increase participation, broaden access to football, positively impact behaviour at all levels of football and deliver for wider society. In addition to these legacy plans, there is an opportunity to work collectively with our hosting partners around key projects to deliver an impact that is beyond what is possible individually. In this regard, a community programme is being developed that will connect the participating nations and leverage the power of a UEFA Euro tournament to create additional impact for communities and drive meaningful benefits. Euro 2028 can also be a platform to amplify key national policies, such as using an event as an exemplar for sustainable practices. It is important that the tournament enhances the sustainability and legacy benefits for sport and related sectors, such as tourism, while minimising associated climate impacts, such as transport emissions and waste generation. My officials continue to work closely with their counterparts in the other host nations and all key stakeholders to ensure that Euro 2028 is delivered in a co-ordinated and cohesive manner that meets the objectives of all partners. We have seen the benefits of hosting major international football events most recently when the UEFA Europa League final was held in Dublin in 2024. The event played a significant role in stimulating economic growth, job creation and tourism in Dublin while also highlighting the city’s cultural heritage. The final attracted a substantial global audience of 49.5 million viewers and generated a total gross added value contribution of €17.4 million to the economy. It saw 47,000 spectators packing out the Aviva stadium with over 25,000 attendees coming from overseas, and it is estimated to have supported almost 300 jobs. It gave us a significant taste of what it will be like when we host EURO 2028 games in Dublin. Another potential major football event that is under consideration for support by my Department is the UEFA Women’s Champions League final in 2029. The FAI recently submitted a preliminary bid to UEFA to host the final. The potential hosting of this event represents an opportunity to promote the growth of women and girls' football in Ireland and to build on the momentum of co-hosting EURO 2028. Sports tourism delivers great value and hosting major international sports events enriches the tourism and hospitality sectors all across the island. These events stimulate trade, foster community pride, and contribute significantly to our ongoing economic development. They can also inspire a sense of national pride and shape both how we see ourselves as a nation and how we are perceived internationally. Guided by the Government policy and strategy framework for the hosting of major international sporting events, we will continue to support the hosting of major football events in Ireland and to explore further hosting opportunities. The true value of sport goes beyond the playing fields and courts. Sport brings people together, fosters mutual respect and drives positive change across societies, inspiring us to be our best selves. It helps to build communities that stand together, where co-operation and mutual support are a given and our shared passion is mirrored in our individual achievements. It is a celebration of diversity and breaks down barriers, especially for the vulnerable, such as children, migrants and people with disabilities. From grassroots participation to elite and high-performance athletes, the Government is committed to supporting our sporting ecosystem and improving Ireland’s standing as a sporting nation. The support that continues to be provided for football is a key example of that commitment in action.

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.

We only have to look at how we got behind Rory McIlroy at the weekend and his back-to-back Masters win to know the Irish people are sports mad. It was an absolutely tremendous achievement but I would argue that nothing lifts the nation like a successful Irish soccer team. It lifts the mood. I congratulate the Irish women's soccer team last night for a wonderful result away in Poland. We also saw how Troy Parrott and his team lifted the mood of the nation over the last couple of months and how the mood dropped after the agonising penalty shoot-out in Czechia. The Government is very quick to take photo opportunities with the national team but you need to put your money where your mouth is. Population-wise, Ireland is very similar to Croatia. Croatia regularly qualifies for major tournaments and goes far in them. Ireland does not. Croatia has 190 full-time academy staff. Ireland has ten. There is a message in there somewhere. The Government has allocated €3 million for League of Ireland academies. That is welcome but it does not go far enough, particularly with the onset of the new national league, which will be the third tier of the League of Ireland. I want to congratulate Lucan United and St. Francis FC from my own area for achieving this status. I believe Letterkenny Rovers FC, in the Minister of State's neck of the woods, has achieved this status. Clubs like that will need assistance. I am a passionate League of Ireland fan. I am at my happiest in Richmond Park cheering on St. Pat's. I travel to games up and down the country. However, the FAI has branded the stadiums in the League of Ireland as archaic, and I have to agree with it. There is only one stadium in the whole country in the League of Ireland that has a 10,000-plus capacity. When I was mayor of South Dublin County Council I had the honour of cutting the ribbon on Tallaght Stadium. It was a bit of a bittersweet moment for me as a St. Pat's supporter cutting the ribbon on a ground for Shamrock Rovers but it goes to show that, with the vision of a local authority like South Dublin County Council and the necessary backing, something like that can be achieved. All stadiums right across the country should be like that. We could have funded this through a simple 1% increase in the betting levy tax. The fact that the Government did not access the Brexit equalisation fund for League of Ireland clubs was a missed opportunity. Like all sports, we have some bad supporters. This is true in the GAA, in rugby and in any other sports. I want to contribute my thoughts on what my colleague, Deputy Joanna Byrne, talked about. The handful of bad actors - bad Drogheda United supporters in Dundalk - were rightly condemned and nobody condemned them more than my friend, Joanna Byrne. However, the response of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, response was absolutely disproportionate. In fact, it was snobbery towards soccer fans. It was like putting a plague on all our houses. Threatening to stop the funding for a whole league because of the action of a few is collective punishment. How dare he? As a League of Ireland fan, I find this totally unacceptable. I also want to stand in solidarity with Deputy Joanna Byrne on her principled and moral response to Ireland playing Israel. As a season ticket holder for Ireland matches, I will not be attending this match. We should not play ball with genocide. Grassroots soccer is something I have been involved in since I was a kid. I have been involved in it all my life. Grassroots clubs in my area are the mainstay of our communities. They keep our young people on the right road and they do not get enough credit or support. In my area the Coldcut land was recently bought by a speculator who is hoping to develop that and get the land rezoned. I am again calling on South Dublin County Council to compulsorily purchase this amenity so clubs like Collinstown FC and Palmerstown FC can have a place to call home and grow. Finally, I congratulate Quarryvale FC for starting an under-sevens' academy in Quarryvale Park. It is the first time in over a decade that we will see kids playing football in that park and the club needs to be commended. However, like all grassroots soccer clubs, it needs to be supported as well.

I am standing here as a GAA person. However, in my community I see the power and the work that soccer teams, soccer clubs and soccer coaches have done. I have seen over the last 40 years how the number one sport in Cork was hurling. The number one sport now in Cork is soccer. There are a number of reasons for that but I have seen it taking off. The amount of young people playing the game is unbelievable but some of the sporting facilities are horrendous. They are shocking. How this Government has failed soccer over the years is wrong. I look at the community in soccer and how important it is. This Friday night there is the Togher el clásico. It is a soccer game that has been organised. I send my sincere condolences to the family of Eileen O'Leary following her tragic passing. She was buried this week. What happened was a real tragedy. Five other houses were damaged. Soccer teams are coming together - Pearse Celtic and Greenwood FC - and on Friday night they are staging the game as a fundraiser. That shows how soccer is at the heart of local communities. I wish them the very best with that. I want to talk about the amount of clubs in my area. It is unbelievable. There is Castleview AFC, Temple United FC, Rockmount AFC, St. Mary's AFC, Mayfield United AFC, Blackstone Rovers FC. My problem is that if I start naming them I am going to miss some, like Blarney United FC and Ballincollig AFC. There are so many, but they need support. I will give the Minister of State some figures because sometimes it comes down to figures and funding. Cork received, on average, €50 per capita in sports funding in 2023. That is €20 less per capita than the national average. That shows that Cork is not being supported the way it should be, and I believe the figure nationally is way too low. It affects the smaller clubs. There is a club in my community, Knocknaheeny Celtic. Over the last year it has had no dressing rooms. Through work by local councillors, Michelle Gould and Kenneth Collins, Cork City Council and Ross O'Callaghan, the club now has temporary accommodation, but it has no fencing. We are trying to get more people playing soccer but the smaller clubs in the most disadvantaged areas are always the ones that lose out the most. Four soccer clubs on the northside of Cork city applied for funding in 2023. Not one of them got the full allocation. I will explain. If clubs from working-class areas or clubs from areas that are not as socially successful as others do not get all the funding they request, they will not be able to deliver the projects. That needs to be taken into consideration. We know that when kids are playing sports, especially kids from disadvantaged areas, it makes a huge difference to the outcomes in their lives. We are very proud of the women who won the other night. Denise O'Sullivan from my community is a true leader and role model for everyone. The soccer boys did us proud. We should not be playing any games with Israel and I stand by Joanna Byrne 100%.

Anyone with any interest in the League of Ireland knows there has been a huge increase in attendances at League of Ireland games over the past few years. In my county, Kerry FC has started from a low base and it has added so much to the fabric of the town. It is a place to go, even socially, every second Friday night. Those spectators are part of the more than 1.1 million people who attended games last season, an overall increase of 8%. There is no doubt, as we heard earlier, that the League of Ireland is severely underfunded. Facilities are not up to standard. However, despite that it contributed over €164 million to the local economy in the last year that we have numbers for. Facilities are poor, especially when it comes to infrastructure and academies. Comparisons have been made to Croatia and Serbia. Croatia has 190 full-time academy coaches and Ireland has ten. Our budget is comparable to those in San Marino or Andorra. In fact, our youth set-up trails behind countries which are ranked 51 to 100 in men's and women's FIFA rankings. There was a plan to give €140,000 to each academy but now only €93,000 will be awarded to the 26 clubs. That is pennies compared with the money given to other sports. There should be a 1% increase in the betting tax and more should be given to soccer clubs because an awful lot more of the betting goes on football than on anything else. Last year the FAI presented a plan over 11 years of just over €7 million per year. Sinn Féin had suggested €5 million per year to build the infrastructure and return it to the top tier. I, too, want to congratulate and stand with Deputy Joanna Byrne on the stand she took about the Israel game. The fanbase support her, the people of Drogheda support her and we support her. I want to pay tribute to the club that is closest to my heart, Tralee Dynamos AFC. I pay tribute to the volunteers, the coaches and the players. It is Kerry's oldest club, at over 65 years old. I learned so much from Frank Sheridan and Noel Hegarty. Running an extra lap around the low field stood to me in the years to come. I also pay tribute to the AstroTurf facility, and the people who did the work on it, and the girls in the women’s club. Those clubs have been reaching out into the communities more than anybody else and deserve to be supported.

Ireland’s upcoming fixture against Israel should not go ahead. I want to state clearly that I condemn UEFA for its handling of this issue, a handling that shows a flagrant disregard for its principles. When Russia invaded Ukraine, UEFA acted swiftly to sideline it from the competition. Yet in the face of Israel’s devastating and ongoing assault on Gaza, we see no such action. Why the double standard? Why is one state sanctioned and another afforded impunity? In November, the FAI passed a motion calling for Israel to be banned from UEFA competitions. That was a principled position reflecting the views of the grassroots. Yet by February, that stance was abandoned, with the FAI confirming that this fixture would proceed as scheduled. I condemn the FAI for that decision and for failing to stand up for justice when it mattered. It seems it has lost its moral compass. The Irish people have consistently shown that we would rather stand on the right side of humanity rather than be complicit in the oppression and destruction of another people. Sport does not exist in a vacuum; it never has. There is always a political context and choices to be made about what kind of behaviour we are willing to tolerate on the international stage. On the pitch, we accept rules because there are consequences when these rules are broken. What message does it send, however, when a state that persistently breaks international laws faces no consequences at all? If this were a football match, Israel would be shown the red card. In the case of the Eurovision last year, RTÉ made the right call, reflecting public sentiment and Ireland’s long-standing commitment to freedom and self-determination. We need that same courage now. The people of Palestine deserve nothing less than our continued support. Trump’s so-called peace agreement, which excluded Palestinians, has done nothing to address the structural violence they face nor to advance any meaningful or just resolution. Illegal occupation continues with impunity. Ireland should have no hand, act or part in normalising that reality. Seasaim go bródúil le mo chomhghleacaí Joanna Byrne a bhaineadh go héagothrom óna post mar chathaoirleach ar Drogheda United tar éis di seasamh suas don rud atá ceart. I support the grassroots call for the GAA to end its sponsorship agreement with Allianz, a company with strong links to Israel. Thousands of GAA members have campaigned for ties to be cut and I commend their efforts. I take the opportunity to congratulate Newbridge FC for joining the FAI National League this year, the first team in County Kildare to do so since 2009. My son played for the team and many of his friends still do. I look forward to supporting the team and I hope to see other clubs join in the future. For our local and national teams to succeed, we need adequate investment in the League of Ireland and its academies from this Government right here, right now. If the Government can prop up industries steeped in animal cruelty, surely it can invest in the League of Ireland.

The League of Ireland and the GAA have undeniably done tremendous work over recent years. This is clearly borne out by attendance figures, especially for the League of Ireland, which saw over 1.1 million people attend games. There has been more than an 11.7% rise in the number of spectators year on year. Soccer and GAA clubs have innovated in how they raise funds and how they support their local communities in all sorts of ways. I wholeheartedly commend everybody involved in football clubs. They deserve credit, especially the very many volunteers. While Government figures will always be willing to put out social media posts during a national team campaign, the fact of the matter is that the successes of the League of Ireland have been in spite of the Government rather than because of it. The League of Ireland severely lacks investment and proper infrastructure. There have been a lot of League of Ireland jerseys outside the Chamber today. Unfortunately, while County Monaghan does have many fantastic clubs, the only professional team in my county folded back in 2012 because of debts of just €6,000. There is no League of Ireland club in County Cavan. I ask the Minister of State to put more funds into encouraging that happening in Cavan and Monaghan. We all know how beneficial it is to children and young people growing up. Instead, as a TD from a Border county, today I had to wear a Derry City jersey, which is reflective of my ambition that we would see an all-Ireland league and national team. What we would like to see from the Minister of State is an update of the code of practice for safety and the putting in place of funding to help clubs to meet it. I also ask him to fulfil his party’s commitment to increase the betting tax by 1% and put that money into sports funding, and to commit to multi-annual funding for facilities and infrastructure while working with organisations to become self-sufficient. I also commend and show solidarity with my party colleague, Deputy Joanna Byrne. As chairperson of Drogheda United, she was central to the fantastic work that has taken place there. I note some Government figures were very quick to express opinions that the Ireland-Israel game should take place. I also welcome that the Minister for foreign affairs only recently launched a sports diplomacy policy. Let us be real, however. The Government does not have a sports diplomacy strategy for the love of the game. It is diplomatic soft power, sport being inherently political. I invite the Minister of State to reflect on his party's support for that game and perhaps consider his Government’s role in supporting the soft power and sportswashing of the genocidal Israeli regime.

As someone who worked in soccer refereeing for 15 years, I was probably called every name under the sun twice, and that was before I got into politics. I saw first-hand during that time the vital role that football plays in our society. It is far more than just a game; it is an anchor to local communities. It is a source of pride and a powerful force that connects people across generations, from young people taking their first steps in academies to older people representing their clubs and towns. The sense of identity and pride that football fosters is truly remarkable. It brings people together in a way that very few other activities can. However, if we are to sustain that and grow this impact, we must commit to a greater investment in football from the ground up. Grassroots clubs are the lifeblood of the sport. They need the resources to thrive. In my constituency of Dublin Fingal West, there are clubs such as Rush Athletic FC and Skerries Town FC - both of which I played for, but I can only wear one jersey - Lusk United AFC and Glebe North FC in Balbriggan. These local football clubs are doing incredible work, but they cannot do it alone. They require sustained support and investment to continue serving communities and we must support them in doing this. At the same time, investment must go hand-in-hand with strong governance. Clubs, and not just soccer clubs, must be inclusive, transparent and open to all. Robust safeguarding policies, adult safeguarding policies and welfare policies are essential to ensuring that every person who participates in sport feels safe and respected and State funding to sporting organisations should be cut if they are not adhering to those codes of conduct. We must also be clear in our stance against any form of discrimination, bullying or harassment. Football, as well as all sports, should be a space where everybody belongs. We have seen a concerning level of online abuse which also needs to be stamped out. We must also support and develop those who give their time to the games - the volunteers. Whether these are coaches or committee members, they are the backbone of our clubs. They deserve proper training and support to ensure the highest standards and best practices are taking place across not just soccer clubs but all clubs. We need to invest not just in facilities but in people, values and community. Football will continue to unite and inspire for generations should we do this.

In the long history of this Dáil there have only been two debates on football. This is the second, and the first was in 2023, put forward by the Labour Party. This debate is only happening because of a request from the Labour Party to put football front and centre in terms of much-needed funding. Our colleague, Deputy Ged Nash, is convening a cross-party group on football in the coming weeks, which we hope will have input from Members on all sides, to push the agenda of grassroots League of Ireland men’s and women’s football throughout this country. That is how important the Labour Party believes football to be. When these statements were originally scheduled a couple of weeks ago, the Ireland men’s team was two games away from the type of summer that many young people have never experienced and would never forget. However, there is still a bright future ahead for our men’s team. There is a huge, bright future for our women’s team. Luckily - I say luckily because it is not as a result of support from the State - we have the most vibrant and exciting offering in all sport on this island, namely the League of Ireland, which runs right through the summer. Again, it is hampered from investing in itself by the rules of funding and schemes such as the large scale sports infrastructure fund, LSIF, which is very difficult for a League of Ireland club to avail of in relation to upfront funding costs. We need to invest in our stadiums in order to harness, attract and increase the numbers of people, some 1.1 million, who came through the turnstiles last year. The League of Ireland needs the support of Government, a change in the funding model and real commitment. What was really revealing was the response of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, a few weeks ago to the scenes in Oriel Park. Funding, such as it is, for the League of Ireland and football in this country seems to be hung and swung over the heads of those in the football community by this Government. They have to meet a bar that is so high that even a slight digression will result in the withholding of funding and support. That is just not on. It is unsustainable and proves to the football community in this country that it does not have the full support of the State. It is a feeling the football community has had forever. Those in that community have always been the poor men and poor women of Irish sport in the context of structured funding. An independent audit completed last year found that youth football facilities in Ireland lag well behind those in another countries. Of youth facilities in the 100 countries surveyed, those here were ranked 51st by FIFA, football's world governing body. Only 4% of our clubs here have a full-time head of coaching. This compares with 46% in associations of equivalent rank. No League of Ireland club has a minimum of four full-time academy coaches. In the aforementioned FIFA-ranked countries, the figure is 36%. I ask the Minister of State to work with the FAI, grassroots clubs and the League of Ireland. They have pulled themselves up without structured help from the State to provide the best offering of sport in this country. They need further support.

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.

I am glad the Minister of State is here. I want to start by paying tribute to my colleague Aodhán Ó Ríordáin MEP, who was something of a lone voice in the previous Dáil when it came to football in this country. As my colleague Deputy Smith said, this is only the second time we have discussed football in this Chamber, which is simply not good enough. I also pay tribute to the Irish women and their terrific win last night against Poland. They are role models for a growing sector of our communities, and young girls are looking up to them. However, there are issues around that which I will refer to. Unfortunately, Kildare County FC is no longer with us, having folded in 2009. I welcome the fact that Newbridge Town FC will form part of the new third division of the League of Ireland when it gets up and running. I am an avid follower of football in this country and of the League of Ireland. It is absolutely brilliant to see the levels that clubs here have achieved, particularly in Europe. I do not think enough credit is given to our League of Ireland clubs for their achievements in Europe over the past couple of years and for what they have done in terms of putting Irish football on the map. As has been said, we need to invest in the stadiums. Some of those stadiums are sheds. They are simply not fit for purpose and will not encourage younger people to get involved in the game or thousands of people to come out and support their clubs. In the time remaining, I want to talk about grassroots football, because that is where it all begins. The Minister of State knows from his area the terrific growth there is in grassroots football. In my hometown of Athy, we have two wonderful clubs, namely Athy Town AFC and Clonmullion AFC. Both of those clubs struggle for facilities. For the growing population of my town, there are very limited opportunities for new people to join those clubs because of limited facilities. I have raised with previous Ministers for Sport and I raise with the Minister of State tonight the need for local authorities and Government to invest in shared facilities. I will provide an example in this regard. In Athy, 13 acres are zoned for a shared facility, yet we are not able to progress that. We have 13 acres that would make a difference to both of the clubs I mentioned and to other sports clubs in the town. What should be happening in every local authority area is that the Government should be investing and local authorities should be managing matters in order to that there are facilities and that clubs which are so desperate can grow by being provided with access modern facilities. This is something that previous Ministers for Sport said was a great idea. Unfortunately, it stopped at that. I plead with the Minister of State to investigate this idea, which we in the Labour Party have brought forward previously. Shared facilities are the way forward. The cost of land is preventing so many clubs from expanding. If we have shared facilities, that could make a difference to the football clubs of this country, particularly those in my wonderful county of Kildare.

I thank my colleague Deputy Smith for working tirelessly to get these statements on the agenda of the House. I pay tribute to the senior women’s team on their win last night. Soccer is often seen as the sport of the working class. From the outset, when clubs and teams were established by workers in industry and in working-class communities, up to the present day, soccer clubs have played a pivotal role in communities. Modern professional soccer may be dominated by money and the wealthy, but it is ordinary working people who make the sport what it is. Whether it is in Cork, Dublin or Belfast, soccer has deep roots in Ireland. It continues to be the most participated in team sport in the country according to Sport Ireland’s Irish Sports Monitor 2024. At a push, all you need are two hoodies and some semblance of a ball to kick around the street and you have yourself a game. The recent utterances of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, about collective punishment for the League of Ireland exposed the clear dissociation and neglect the sport is often the subject of in Ireland. The funding made available through the Department each year must be fairly distributed as it is often the case that soccer clubs are the ones scrambling for a pittance while others thrive. As with many sports, it is the community at grassroots level that keeps soccer alive and thriving. We can see it all over Ireland. In my constituency and in my town we even have two clubs, Mallow United AFC and Mallow Town Football Club. The prosperity and success of community clubs is reliant on the volunteering and fundraising of dedicated members of our communities. Clubs like Mallow United host "Strictly Come Dancing" type events to raise funds for their facilities, like the one in the Charleville Park Hotel on Saturday, 18 April to which I will be lending my dancing skills, or lack thereof, in support. Not only do we see this positive reflection on community at grassroots level, we also see professional clubs like Cork City Football Club and their community kit room initiative that provides good condition goalkeeper gloves, jerseys, training gear, boots, used footballs, training bibs and cones at no cost, supporting those in the community who otherwise would go without. That is what soccer is: the people's game, a unifier, and the world's game. I want to touch on the Nations League fixture between Ireland and Israel. I will not waste anyone's time by asking the Minister of State with responsibility for sport to do anything here, but I will say that this game should not be going ahead. Israel should be banned from participation in FIFA and UEFA competitions. The Israel Football Association has breached multiple UEFA and FIFA statutes. Six Israeli clubs play on occupied territories - Palestinian lands. There are reports that over 500 people associated with the Palestinian FA have been murdered by Israeli forces. The governing bodies are failing the sport with Israel's continued inclusion. No Irish player should be put in a position where they have to compete against a team representing a state like that. Any player who feels in good conscience that he or she cannot participate should be fully supported by the association and by the Department of sport. One thing is for sure, the fans will support them.

I thank the Deputy. Before calling the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor, I extend a welcome to the Flemish minister for agriculture and environment, and the ambassador, who are here with the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan. You are very welcome. For those in the Public Gallery, it is good to see so many in attendance. I mention in particular the representative from Taiwan, Daniel Diann-Wen Tang, his wife, Stephanie Chang, and Christina Hong, here with Deputy Barry Ward. You are very welcome. I must also mention that Deputy Timmins is in the Gallery with some visitors. You are all very welcome. It is good to see the representative here from Taiwan and the Flemish delegation too. We now move to the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor.

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. Football is one of Ireland's most popular sports and we as a Government are proud to back it at all levels, from grassroots clubs where our youngest players take their first kick to professional academies that will shape the next generation of our Irish international players. Football is a hugely popular sport in Carlow and I could take up my entire time slot here naming every football club in the county. The work our football clubs do within our community is extremely important. They bring our local communities together for social occasions and for physical activity. Any evening of the week, or any day or at the weekends we see children, young people and adults out training on football pitches across the county. I give particular mention to the football teams, both men's and ladies, at the South East Technological University, SETU. We are blessed to have such an amazing sporting facility in Carlow thanks to SETU. It is also wonderful that the young people in our communities are able to witness such high-quality football being played in our county in such fantastic facilities. We saw how much joy and excitement the Irish team brought to the country recently as they pushed for the World Cup qualification. Sadly, they did not make it but the whole country was behind them. I also mention our Irish women who won last night against Poland. We hope they can recreate their run to the World Cup. We all remember the excitement of seeing them play in the last World Cup in Australia. I hope as many people as possible turn out to support them this weekend in the Aviva Stadium. The Government's commitment to Irish football is reflected in the numbers. From 2020 to 2024, over €71 million was awarded to football-specific projects under the community sports facility fund. A further €52.4 million was directed to football under the large-scale sports infrastructure fund, giving clubs across the country the modern, high-quality facilities they need and they deserve. A total of €6 million per year is provided to the Football Association of Ireland to support football development programmes at every level of the game. In budget 2026, the Government provided a landmark investment into the League of Ireland academies, providing multi-year funding to professionalise all 26 League of Ireland academies. This will create full-time coaching roles across the country to provide our most talented young players with the high-performance training they require to fulfil their potential. As the saying goes, "If you can't see it, you can't be it". This is why under the large-scale sports infrastructure fund the Government has ensured there will be equal access to funding and facilities for men and women. Our investment in grassroots girls' programmes, the FAI women's and girls' action plan, and the development of female coaches at all level of the game, reflects our belief that women's football must be supported as a priority. Football is more than just an elite level sport. As a Minister of State with responsibility for public health and well-being, there is a lot of great work going on in my Department to promote physical activity throughout the country. Under our walking tracks fund, €400,000 was provided to football clubs last year to develop walking tracks in the clubs' grounds to make facilities as accessible as possible for the whole community. Healthy Ireland also provides funding each year to promote physical activity. This includes park runs, which are huge successes and which continue to go from strength, and the active schools' flag programme. Funding is also provided to promote walking football, which I know is a valuable outlet for so many of our older adults who still love the game and want to stay active. I thank the Minister of State for his commitment. He has been visiting a lot of clubs around the country. It is hoped the grant scheme will be ready. The Minister of State is committed to providing the supports needed to ensure that we have top-class facilities throughout Ireland. It is so important. Everybody's health and well-being is so important. Being active and seeing communities involved in so much sport gives exceptional benefits.

I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening to speak and make statements related to football. I have a couple of points I would like to make, My initial point is to say a massive thank you to all the clubs in the country, especially in my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny, to all the volunteers, all the executive, all coaches, all parents and all players. It is a fantastic asset to have for a community. I have seen at first hand incredible developments in Kilkenny and in Carlow in soccer facilities, soccer infrastructure and increased participation in sport and soccer, particularly among females. It is fantastic to see. A huge amount has been done but we need to continue to do more to encourage participation in sport, especially among our females. It is in that context I want to talk a little bit about the sports capital grant or the community sports facilities fund, which will be announced shortly. The total allocation of that has increased significantly over the last terms. It had gone from €70 million to €170 million, and the last tranche was €270 million. There is a fantastic opportunity here now for all sports clubs but for soccer clubs in particular to really increase the infrastructure and the capacity of their sports facilities, whether it be dressing rooms for girls, AstroTurf pitches, floodlights or walkways around them. There is a significant pot of money going to be made available. I would encourage every sporting organisation and every soccer organisation in Kilkenny and in Carlow to get their applications ready, to give me a shout, and we will make sure we get as many of those over the line as possible. In relation to the FAI and the proposals for the summer league, which was a very hot issue around 12 months ago, I acknowledge and thank the FAI for its openness in discussing it and in allowing every county to decide what is best for itself. I am from Kilkenny and we are a massive GAA county. We love our hurling but we love our soccer as well. The summer calendar would not have worked because people would have picked one sport over the other. They can co-exist. I commend the FAI on allowing each county to decide what is best for itself. In Kilkenny and Carlow we have a fantastic situation where, in the winter months, our soccer is played brilliantly and we have the facilities for it with AstroTurf and floodlights, and in the summer the GAA takes over. They can absolutely co-exist. In the context of the sports capital grant or the community sports capital fund, I encourage the Department to support joint applications. We have a lot of situations where communities and areas have come together, and the local GAA club and soccer club are side by side. I encourage that applications involving a soccer club and a GAA club be prioritised in this round in order to make sure that amount of money involved is as high as possible. I pay particular tribute to a group of girls involved with Highview Athletic in Graiguenamanagh, which is my club. The first girls’ team was formed approximately five years ago. They have been campaigning and playing. Two weeks ago, they won the league. It is a great story of resilience. It was the first girls’ soccer team ever in the history of the club. There is now a girls’ soccer team at every single age group. They went on and won the league, but it is not about winning the league. It is about the friendships they have made and the spirit the group has formed together. It is about the coaches and the work they have done. It is about the parents. I commend every person involved in that group, from the coach to the grannies who dropped girls to training and the whole soccer community, because that was an incredible achievement. It goes to show the importance of sticking together, the importance of sport and the importance of resilience and the life lessons learnt. We need to continue to invest in sport and in football. I encourage the Minister of State to fight as hard as possible to make sure that as much funding as possible is made available to the FAI and the football sector and to the grassroots. That is really important.

I welcome this debate on support for football throughout the country. I welcome the Minister of State's commitment to invest in football. I also welcome the investment in academies that was announced for this year. We have seen new leadership within the FAI. The vision those people have for our national teams, the League of Ireland and grassroots football is critical. As others have said, the investment we will see as part of the next round of the sports capital fund is very important in that regard. Clubs that work in partnership with other clubs and local authorities and that are the backbone of the communities we all live in must receive support. I know this from speaking to people from many of the clubs I meet with regularly in my community. I echo the comments about how it is often difficult to get access to land in fast-growing areas and urban centres. There must be regard for fast-growing communities and the pressure they are under. I represent one of the fastest growing constituencies in the country. I look at Gorey Rangers, which my dad was involved in founding in 1962 and which is attracting so many young people who are coming into the town and playing on the schoolboys’ and schoolgirls’ teams. They need the support to be able to develop more pitches. It is similar with Gorey Celtic. There is also Courtown Hibs. Courtown Riverchapel is now the fifth largest urban settlement in County Wexford. Courtown Hibs is by far the largest sporting club in that community. It is incredibly inclusive, particularly in what it is doing for those with disabilities. I look at Arklow Town FC, founded in 1948, which is the backbone of Arklow and supported by people within the community. There is also St. Joseph's in Kilmuckridge, which is a huge club in a rural and strong GAA area. Yet, this is a club with over 500 members that works closely with Coláiste an Átha, the secondary school in Kilmuckridge. There is Tombrack United in a really small community, but everybody is involved because in many of our communities they are not just involved in the soccer clubs or the local school. They are involved in every aspect of what happens. Soccer clubs are not just for playing football. It is about how they contribute toward community life. What we have to be about as a Government and as a society is not just building housing, which we really need, we must also communities. That is about investing in community, sports and cultural facilities, and providing soccer pitches is critically important. I look forward to working with the Minister of State on the next round of sports capital grants, which will be announced in the coming months, and, in particular, on supporting the clubs that are doing so much to build our communities and grassroots football.

Like everyone here, I was disappointed that our boys in green did not qualify for the World Cup on this occasion, but they made us proud and reminded us of what it is like to dream. I wish the girls in green the best of luck as they progress in the campaign for the qualifiers. They are inspiring young girls up and down the country. The key to this debate is investment in our young people, our clubs and our communities. Throughout my constituency are a number of excellent soccer clubs that are very well organised. There are Kilbarrack United, St. Malachy's FC, St. Paul's Artane, Killester Donnycarney, Raheny United, Howth Celtic and Baldoyle United to name a few. Across the constituency, there are not enough facilities. I refer, in particular, to all-weather pitches. We have had a sodding wet winter, and the spring has not been much better. Ordinary grass pitches are not playable for periods of the year, and training is impossible. The solution to this is all-weather pitches. Unfortunately, we have had an issue with the habitats directive. Where there have been applications for all-weather facilities, there have been hiccups with regard to the brent geese. We are beginning to break through that particular problem, but it will certainly restrict the numbers of all-weather facilities that will be available to us. Unfortunately, given our weather patterns, there will be a continued demand for all-weather facilities. We have burgeoning numbers in clubs. We have burgeoning female participation. It is skyrocketing and it is brilliant that it is. These all-weather pitches are life savers to our clubs. Teams can train longer into the evening and the surface allows them to have training sessions and games right throughout the year. These teams want to play throughout the year. They do not want to just be playing when the sod is dry. Clubs in the area they tell me that female participation is exploding. That is fantastic to see this. I have heard countless stories from clubs that they do not have changing or toilet facilities for their girls' teams. This is unacceptable in this day and age, and it has to change. I urge that this be prioritised in the upcoming round of sports capital funding and will be made available particularly in tandem with local authorities. I think of St. Anne's Park in Raheny where a lot of clubs play and where there are no facilities for the female participants in particular. Our clubs take young people off the streets where they could otherwise get involved with the wrong things and go down the wrong road. Investment in soccer and in sport is really important. Like Deputy Cleere, I thank the volunteers who get up early to set out the cones and hang the nets, who stay late planning training sessions and formations, who wash the kits and fill the water bottles and who give lifts in order that players and supporters can get to games and training. They are the backbone of our clubs. They do Trojan work that often goes unnoticed. This is really an opportunity for all of us in this House to thank them for the work they do. The grassroots are the most important part of any sport. It is not enough to praise our teams and players when they succeed. We have to support them long before they pull on the green jersey and have a senior cap.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on these statements. I am a lifelong football fan. I am wearing a Bohs jersey. I am a supporter, a season ticket holder and a member there. The work they do not just on the pitch but also in communities is second to none. I played a fair bit of football. In truth, it was an experience to change on the side of a pitch. Pitches were a set of goals, and a pitch marked out on a flat piece of agricultural land. Sometimes, it was not flat. We often had to clear dung off the pitch before a game. In the late 2000s, I played in the top division in Meath and Louth. We could not use our home pitch for games because it was just not up to standard, like so many others in the competitive league. In our case, our home pitch was where a decent farmer had let us use his land,. There were no changing rooms or any other facilities. That was the reality. While it is better now, there are still many clubs in Meath, Louth and across the State that do not have anywhere near appropriate facilities. The standard of coaching has progressed light years from where it was. There are players from Meath, men and women, boys and girls, who are making progress like never before. All you have to do is look at the national team, the League of Ireland and elsewhere. Players who hail from Meath are right up there. The interest and the talent are there, but they are being let down by a lack of facilities, a lack of resourcing and a lack of investment. The Minister of State has to invest, particularly for our youngsters, both boys and girls, and in our academies. By any reasonable measure, he is coming up way short. We are light years behind. Croatia is a reasonable comparator. It has 190 full-time academy staff whereas we have just ten. I ask the Minister of State to please invest in academies. They are the places our future internationals learn their trade but they are being short-changed. The Government allocated just €3 million compared with an ask of €4.45 million. My final message is on Ireland versus Israel and Israel versus Ireland. Netanyahu is a war criminal. His regime is genocidal. We cannot facilitate this attempt at sportswashing. Stop the game.

I begin by acknowledging all the great work done by thousands of volunteers who ensure our young people have an opportunity to play football every week. We owe a deep gratitude to all the coaches who turn up week in, week out in all weathers to train our young players to be the best they can be both on and off the pitch. The Dublin schoolboy league is the biggest football league in Europe and without the volunteers it simply would not function. I have seen the great work done by the coaches and board, with a special mention to Éoin Sherlock in my local football club Swords Manor. I am proud to wear its jersey as a mark of respect to the club and what it does for our community. Its impact is felt way beyond the football pitch. Swords Manor was founded back in 1995 and now boasts 600 members, 550 players, 30 teams and 75 volunteers. I also want to acknowledge the other local clubs in Swords. Swords Celtic was founded in 1962 and is one of the oldest clubs in Fingal. River Valley Rangers have 300 members with 22 teams in four different leagues. This is just a snapshot of the amazing work done by soccer clubs in Swords but it is also reflected across the length and breadth of Fingal east. Every club is making our communities better, healthier and safer places for everybody but they need support. They need additional pitches, including all-weather pitches. Many teams are making long journeys just to get to a playable pitch. They also need access to facilities and funding. The positive experience gained on football teams is priceless, so we need to invest more in our clubs. I acknowledge my comrade Deputy Byrne. She grew up with Drogheda United and literally learned how to walk on the football pitch. She went on to become the first and only female chair of a League of Ireland team and I stand in solidarity with her. I also applaud her strength of character and the way she has dealt with an appalling situation over the last couple of months. There is no place for genocide in sport. The Irish football team should not play Israel. I will finish by congratulating the Irish women’s team and wishing them the very best at the weekend.

Picking up on the last speaker's comments, I too express my solidarity with Deputy Byrne and acknowledge the very difficult period she has been through and how well she has held herself throughout. I congratulate the Republic of Ireland women’s team on their win yesterday against Poland in the World Cup qualifiers. I will speak about sportswashing, grassroots facilities, the League of Ireland and supporting the women’s game at this critical juncture. Football is the largest participation sport in the world and the largest participation sport in Ireland. It has such potential for good in our world but sportswashing is a blight on the game and has been rampant over the last period. FIFA and UEFA permitting Israel’s Nations League participation while a genocide is carried out is both abhorrent and damaging. It is also wrong that the decision was made by the FAI to participate in the Nations League Israel fixture. However, it has been heartening to see our domestic football community’s response to the genocide and to sportswashing. In November, a resolution was passed by FAI members to submit a motion to UEFA to ban Israel from its European club and international competitions. The resolution requested the immediate suspension of Israel from European competitions and cited violations by Israel’s football association of two provisions of UEFA statutes, the first being its failure to implement and enforce an effective anti-racism policy and the second being Israeli clubs playing in occupied Palestinian territory without the consent of the Palestinian Football Association. Some 63% of our domestic league players who are members of the Professional Footballers' Association of Ireland voted against Ireland fulfilling the Nations League Israel fixture and celebrated managers like Brian Kerr and Stephen Bradley have used their voices to condemn the sportswashing being carried out - and this is sportswashing. Week in and week out, fans at games hold Palestine flags in the stands to call for solidarity with the people of Gaza and the West Bank. This response by so many involved in Irish football is truly something to be proud of in the face of unprecedented attempts at sportswashing. As the Social Democrats spokesperson on sports people come to me with their many concerns about the funding and governance of sport here, including football and including my constituency of Dublin Rathdown. Pitch space, especially in urban areas, is increasingly difficult for clubs to secure. Rosemount Mulvey Football Club in Dundrum have had to fight so hard for a second pitch and have told me of the very real fear of having to turn kids away because they simply cannot accommodate more members. While I am confident Rosemount’s particular issue will soon be resolved, other clubs around the country are experiencing the same pitch issues. Many clubs struggle with a lack of facilities for playing, changing and conditioning, and in Ireland only 34% of clubs at grassroots level have female toilets. We know what the dropout rates are for girls in sport so basic facility provision is an absolute must. We have to meet the moment when it comes to football in Ireland. It is fantastic to see crowds making their way to Dalymount after work for evening fixtures or families making the trip to watch a Rovers game in Tallaght Stadium at the weekend. The growth in our domestic game is undeniable. Viewership is up, attendance is up and participation across demographics is up, as are the crucial gifts to society delivered by football and sport more widely, like community, respect, solidarity, integration, friendship, health and well-being. However, in order to harness this growth, we must invest in it through the community sports facilities fund, the large-scale sports infrastructure fund and every avenue we have. The women’s game is certainly an area that needs continued and further investment. As a staff member of a League of Ireland club said to my office yesterday, you cannot grow the game from success; you have to prime it for success. We have the potential to be a top-tier nation in the game and we are at an important and exciting time with growth in women’s football, so let us deliver for our domestic league, elite pathways and our national side and be vanguards for equality in football. Media coverage is another area that is important for the women’s game. It is great to see increased coverage of our women’s fixtures over the last number of years but we need to see this in broader media coverage. Niamh Tallon, founder of Her Sport, highlighted recently that the FAI and RTÉ both put out messaging that the men’s World Cup qualifiers could lead to the first World Cup qualification by Ireland in 20 years, which ignored the fact that the women’s squad competed in the 2023 World Cup. These standards and recognition matter in coverage. I mention also League of Ireland women because there really is something magic with that league. Today, I am proud to wear the kit of my local club, DLR Waves. The standard of football and incredible athletes we have in DLR Waves and across the league as well as the fan communities building around the country are phenomenal and I urge everyone here to get to a fixture. I add my condemnation of the Minister’s comments and reaction as classist, divisive and harmful to people and to a sport that is the lifeblood of so many of our most deprived communities.

I am wearing my Shelbourne top tonight because that was my boyhood club where I spent a lot of my Friday nights both as a kid and an adult. A couple of years ago, the fans of Shelbourne were at risk of losing Tolka Park, which the club had grown in, and embarked on a campaign to save the ground. It was an inspiring campaign that was fan-driven and culminated when Shels won the league. It was genuinely heartwarming, so I pay tribute to the fans of Shelbourne FC. A couple of embarrassing statements have emanated from the Minister of State's Department, though admittedly not from him. A few weeks ago, even I had to step back when I read in the newspaper that the launch of Kerry FC's pitch, which had received €380,000 in well-deserved funding, had to be delayed because the Minister could not attend. It turns out that the Department has a policy requiring clubs receiving over €100,000 to give a month's notice so Ministers can attend openings. This is neither the Minister of State's money nor the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan's money but the people's money. Launches do not necessarily need to be delayed so that Ministers can attend. It led me to have a little step back because while Ministers are very quick to go cut ribbons, they are not so quick to show up when things are a little more difficult. It is more difficult to launch pitches in an urban city centre environment because the clubs do not have the space. They do not have the space from public land. They do not have the long-term leases by which they could avail of the sports capital grant. That is a structural failure that has huge consequences. I have raised in the Chamber on any number of occasions that kids in the north and south inner city of Dublin have literally nowhere to play an 11-a-side football game. I raised this during Leaders' Questions a few weeks ago and highlighted the fact that, per capita, Dublin received only €26.50 per person under the sports capital grant. The national average is €54 per person and counties like Leitrim, which are very deserving, get over €100 per person from the sports capital grant. Dublin city, the place where Troy Parrott learned to play sports and where we have any number of national heroes, does not have an 11-a-side football pitch. I understand that the Pobal deprivation index was designed to weigh applications for capital sports grants but you cannot weigh an application that has not been submitted. The application cannot be submitted if clubs do not own their own land or have long-term leases. My appeal to the Minister of State is based on grassroots football. It does not matter to me if a kid goes off and plays for Ireland, lifts cups or anything like that. Football is my sport, but sport in general is the means by which we can galvanise a young person, give them the confidence, get them to do teamwork and have the role models like I had in Sheriff YC, and the managers who made sure many years ago when I was a kid that I was home on a Friday night for the match on a Saturday. When you have pitch bookings that are consistently being called off because they are water damaged or because the pitches you are playing on miles away from where you live are overbooked, it means we lose the capacity to give those kids the same chance to just play a game on an AstroTurf pitch the way they can in so many other communities around the country. We need to really look at how we allocate the sports capital grant and give more weighting to clubs that do not have the capacity to own their own land or have leases, or even moreso, invest in municipal facilities. If Dublin City Council were to avail of the sports capital grant, which it has done, it has to give 30 cent on every euro it receives. I want Dublin City Council to be building houses. I want it to be confronting dereliction. If I am constantly on to Dublin City Council to build municipal sports infrastructure and if it were to avail of those grants, that money would be taken away from other immediate needs of the city. I understand that an evaluation of the sports capital fund is going on. We need innovation and a somewhat different approach to level the playing field. Communities that I represent in Dublin Central, that Deputy Jen Cummins represents in Dublin South-Central and, I am sure, other communities, particularly in urban environments, do not have the leases and do not own the land. That creates a problem with huge deficits. I raised this matter with the Tánaiste a couple of weeks ago and he understood the issue and said we would arrange a meeting together. Understandably, I am waiting for that meeting as there have been other things going on. If we could sit down to see how best we could achieve that aim, it would be to the benefit of kids who simply love football and do not have anywhere to play it at the moment. I understand the Minister of State would be open to that.

I thank the Minister of State for still being present. I join with the congratulations offered to the women's national team on their heroic victory this week. I wish them the very best. I join with my colleagues and friends in offering our full solidarity to Deputy Byrne this evening. I would like to speak to the Minister of State about Tadgh, Nathan, Cian, Jack, Sam, Morgan - bear with me - Damien, Donal, Luke, Dominic, Finn, Sean, Niall, John, Enis, MJ, Fiachra, Hugh, Liam, Ronan, Evan, Kyle, Oisín, Heidi, Conor, Rory and Ryan. These young people have been heroes to me since becoming their football coach for the under-7s at Prosperous United AFC about eight years ago. Like most other coaches, we just volunteered as parents. We had no coaching badges and we had no experience, just the best of intentions. Since then, we have spent most Thursday nights together and most Saturday mornings together and, in truth, it is the highlight of my week. We have experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows together. The other coaches - Damien, Tommy and Diarmuid - and I made a commitment to this group many years ago that we wanted to teach them as much about life as we did about football. During that time, we have proudly watched them transition from children to fine young adults. They have learned about discipline, teamwork, integration, honesty, loyalty, belief, hard work, resilience and just so much more. I commend every volunteer coach involved with underage football in this country, whether it is marking pitches, washing jerseys, hanging nets, organising games, pumping footballs or doing training courses, all for the love of the game, or the players for love of the club and their community. As I see it, there are two important problems facing grassroots football in this country. One lies at the feet of this House and one at the feet of the FAI and the leagues. For those who get to play football, our league starts in early August and ends in May. That is the best part of ten months and during that time we have played ten league games this year. We have had more games called off than we have played. Ireland is simply not equipped for winter football. I know others in this House disagree but some clubs might have an AstroTurf pitch; most do not. We need to have an open conversation from a health perspective and from a climate perspective as to whether the future lies in AstroTurf pitches at all. What happens year after year in our league is that we end up cramming two or three fixtures into every week during late April and May just to get the season finished. There is very little enjoyment to that, as the Minister of State can imagine. I understand there would be significant criticism, and there has been, of the calendar season moving to summer football. If we act in the best interests of the children we are volunteering with, then I struggle to see how we can be opposed to that. There will be pressure with competing sports but, in truth, that is happening already. The GAA season has expanded for many young people in the county and they manage to compete in other sports right throughout the year. Until national and regional sporting bodies start talking to one another in the best interests of the young people, that will continue to happen. There might be availability issues during the summer, whether it is for referees or pitches, but we need to get around that because I am not alone in being sick of calling off games and waking up on Saturday at 7.30 a.m. and waiting on a phone call or text to say, "No game again" or "No training again." It is just really frustrating. A reality check is needed between the FAI, the leagues and those who we are working on behalf of. What about the children who do not play football or who cannot play football? During the past couple of years of having the privilege of being spokesperson for children and young people, I have come to the conclusion that we are pricing children, young people and their families out of sport. It is happening quietly, but it is happening. Clubs are not rolling in cash. The ever-increasing cost of keeping a club going have resulted in the need to bring in huge sums of money annually. My understanding is the best-resourced clubs are those with someone on the committee who is adept at filling out grant application after grant application, or a crew that is willing to go to great lengths to fundraise every year to keep the pitches and doors open. If it costs €100, €150, or €200 to join the club before you even buy your boots, socks and shorts and pay for travel, what that results in is a cohort of children and young people simply never making it to the pitch. I ask the Minister of State again to support the Social Democrats' call for a €100 sports and culture voucher in budget 2027. What that would do is effectively guarantee access to sport for every child in this country. It would mean they could choose football. They might choose something else. It is a no-brainer.

I am glad of the opportunity to speak on these statements tonight. Soccer gives this country great joy, similar to all sports. In fact, I attended the opening of a new stand at Cratloe GAA Club in County Clare the other day. I had to deliver a speech and I asked the crowd, if we did not have sport, what would we have. It is such a way of life for people, whether they are playing it, being actively involved or volunteering at the local clubs. Then there are those whose playing days are over. They may be bringing their kids to training and they are getting immense joy from that, whether it is watching the local teams or the county teams. Then there is soccer and the joy it has brought to us, particularly recently, because there have been bad days in Irish soccer. I was born in 1982 and grew up thinking Ireland would always reach World Cup quarter finals. It was not so but the joy it has brought again in recent times has been absolutely incredible. It is lovely to see children going around wearing jerseys with "Parrott Number 7" written on them and Katie McCabe jerseys as well. What is wonderful is that, when I was growing up during the eighties and nineties, there was just men's sport. There was only one Irish football team to get behind. There has always been an Irish women's team but it is televised now. The names are household names. My daughter and her friends know the players and are behind them. Men are watching them and women are watching them. It is a sport for all, and long may that continue. Yet there is still a long journey to go in terms of women's sports. I ask that, when the Minister of State has any budgetary opportunities, whether it is on budget day or within his Department with allocations of sports capital funding, that he take cognisance of that journey that players, their parents and their coaches are making to bring women's sports to a level playing field. As I mentioned on budget day, on the most recent budget day, the Minister of State made a positive announcement that there would be €3.5 million allocated to academies affiliated with League of Ireland clubs. That was fantastic. I do not know how the dates aligned but there was bad news around then that club development officers were being given redundancies. All except development officers affiliated with the women's senior, men's senior and men's under-21 teams were offered redundancy. The package to have academies affiliated with League of Ireland club was significant. It allows the next generation of Troy Parrotts and Katie Taylors to start at grassroots level. I am concerned, though, because League of Ireland is the elite structure of club football in Ireland but there are many counties, my own included, that do not have a League of Ireland club. There is Treaty United down the road, Galway and clubs in neighbouring counties. Not to take from that budget announcement, which was fantastic and long may it stand, but it would be great to have an additional layer of local development teams funded by the Government or local authorities leading out the counties as well. I am not going to get into naming all clubs or players; my young lads played with Corbally United up until recently. It is a fantastic club. There are so many clubs across Clare. In the southern belt of the county, some play in the Limerick district soccer league while many more play in the Clare league and even in the Tipperary league. It is fantastic to see youngsters on Saturday and Sunday mornings kicking the ball up and down the field, learning skills from coaches who give up their time. Like others, I commend the volunteerism. I ask that, going forward, we might have some budgetary package for that. For any clubs watching, the man I am addressing these comments to is the Minister of State with responsibility for sport, Deputy Charlie McConalogue - may it be repeated again and again over the coming months. He will be visiting clubs throughout County Clare and other counties. I look forward with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley, to bringing him to the clubs of County Clare. I hope he will deliver for a lot of us as the year goes on.

Football and sport more widely in Ireland, particularly at grassroots level, are some of the strongest forces we have in building communities. Many Deputies were brave enough to wear the football kits of their local clubs today but I could not be seen to be wearing one club over another, particularly in Kildare North where we have so many clubs like, in my own hometown, Maynooth Town Football Club, Celbridge Town AFC, Leixlip United AFC, Confey FC, Kilcock Celtic FC, Ballyoulster United AFC, Straffan AFC, Kill Celtic AFC, Naas AFC, Sallins Celtic FC, Caragh Celtic FC, Clane United AFC and BBC United FC in Broadford. That shows the level of football throughout Kildare North. A lot of those clubs were established in the 1970s and 1980s when Kildare North started to expand and the population was increasing. They deliver so much to their communities. I want to mention in particular Maynooth Town Football Club because Maynooth Men's Shed was at a difficult point last year when it had to vacate the premises it was in. My colleague, Councillor Donna Phelan, and I were contacted by the men's shed and were looking for a new site for it. Councillor Phelan approached Maynooth Town Football Club, as did I, and it was extremely welcoming. Now, a brand new shed, supported by Kildare County Council, is on Maynooth Town Football Club's grounds. That shows the level of community involvement by these football clubs. I also want to mention Klub Kildare. There has been talk of League of Ireland and its expansion. Klub Kildare has the potential to enter senior leagues and become a League of Ireland club. I initially thought that the then Maynooth University Town FC between Maynooth University and Maynooth Town Football Club could be that club, but Klub Kildare, encompassing the entirety of the county, is really the way forward. Two or three years ago, we had St. Patrick's Athletic FC and I thought "St. Brigid's Athletic" would be an apt name for a football club in Kildare. If we get the pathway right for clubs to enter the League of Ireland, it will be able to expand in a sustainable way. We have seen the success and increased numbers attending matches. This is really positive for the homegrown game and for the future. In women's football in particular, there has been an explosion, with Katie McCabe and all the senior women's football team being really inspiring in their match against Poland. On sports capital grants, a lot of clubs are crying out for all-weather pitches. Celbridge Town AFC is looking at an all-weather pitch, as is Ballyoulster. Ideally, every club would have one but we will try to be as constructive and strategic as possible working with these clubs. The most important thing is that, by investing in our sports clubs, be they soccer, GAA, rugby or whatever, we are investing in community infrastructure and the very fabric of our communities. I commend the Minister of State on his work. I thank the volunteers, parents and everybody who contributes to clubs around Kildare.

I welcome the opportunity, like others, to contribute to this debate on football. I begin by acknowledging what we all felt in recent weeks - the excitement, unity and sheer emotion our national team brought to Ireland. An estimated 1.6 million people tuned in to watch the match against Czechia. That figure alone tells you everything you need to know about the reach and power of football in Irish life. The result in Prague was not what we wanted or hoped for but the journey reminded us of something important - football does not just entertain, it connects. Like others, I congratulate the women's football team on their result against Poland. I wish them continued success. Football connects communities, generations and parts of the country that sometimes feel forgotten by other sports. I know this first-hand from my own constituency in Dún Laoghaire. We are fortunate to have a network of clubs that are the backbone of community life. Cabinteely FC is a very large club in south County Dublin with over 60 teams and has been part of the community since 1967. Granada FC in Blackrock is one of the largest in the constituency. It has had generations of young people pass through its doors for more than 50 years. Shankill FC, with over 30 teams and three academies, operates in one of the fastest-growing residential areas in the country and is crying out for more resources; I know the Minister of State is aware of that. Dalkey United Football Club, which Paul McGrath played for as well as Pearse Rovers in his earlier days, is working closely with Cuala GAA on plans for a new clubhouse at Hyde Park in Dalkey, a great example of sports working together. I want to mention TEK United and Valeview in Shankill, which has a long history and tradition in the borough as well. All of these clubs face real challenges, though. Sallynoggin Pearse Rovers have been waiting years for a clubhouse and are engaging with the local authority. St. Joseph's AFC, or Joey’s, in Sallynoggin is seeking a new all-weather pith. Like every grassroots club in the country, they are all short of pitch space, particularly in Dublin, and these are not isolated problems. The FAI's own data tells us that only 34% of grassroots clubs have female toilet facilities and only 10% have access to indoor facilities. At a time when female participation is growing rapidly, that is simply not good enough. The investment case is overwhelming. Grassroots football delivers an estimated social return on investment of €1.8 billion, almost €18 returned for every single euro invested. The League of Ireland contributes €165 million to the economy. The Aviva Stadium alone generates €832 million annually in the economy. The Government has made a strong start. The €3 million multi-annual funding in budget 2026 is welcome and the €10.8 million in extra current funding for Sport Ireland is significant but the FAI has been clear that €8 million or more is needed to close the gap with other nations. The football facilities investment vision identifies a requirement of €860 million over 15 years to bring our infrastructure up to standard. Only one of 20 League of Ireland stadiums meets UEFA category 4 standards. That means our clubs cannot host European competition games in their own communities. With Euro 2028 on the horizon, an event projected to generate an estimated €450 million in socio-economic benefits, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in legacy infrastructure that will serve communities long after the final whistle. I urge that the upcoming round of the community sports fund and the large-scale sports infrastructure fund be prioritised and expedited. Football is Ireland's most played sport alongside GAA, with 245,000 registered players and 80,000 volunteers, whom we thank. Let us make sure we continue to back it.

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.

We all know that grassroots soccer in the League of Ireland is severely underfunded, particularly in regard to facilities, infrastructure and academies in comparison with other countries such as Croatia. Countries smaller than Ireland boast of having 190 full-time club academy staff in comparison to Ireland's ten. Our budget for League of Ireland academies is comparable to those of Andorra or San Marino, which are very small. Our clubs cater for the youth of Ireland and therefore need proper supports. It all starts at grassroots level. I am thinking of so many fantastic grassroots clubs in my area, such as Gorey Rangers, Gorey Celtic, Arklow United, Arklow Celtic and Arklow Town. There is huge demand for places in these clubs but they lack pitch space. There are also Courtown Hibs, Carnew FC and Camolin Celtic. There is a really good club at Avonmore FC in Rathdrum. There are also Aughrim Rangers, Coolboy Rangers and Killenagh Wanderers. We also have Ferns United, Tombrack United and Shillelagh United. There are also other clubs in the south, including St. Joseph's AFC in Kilmuckridge, Bunclody FC and St. Cormac's AFC in Boolavogue. Wexford schoolboys represented Ireland in the Gallini Cup last week. This was a great achievement for Ireland. All the fundraising was local with no support through statutory funding. These are all fantastic clubs that need greater Government support and investment in facilities, including clubhouses, pitches and AstroTurf. This is an investment in our youth. Sport is crucial, as we know, for people's mental and physical well-being. I will support any application by such clubs in the upcoming round of sports capital funding, which will be coming after the summer. As a country we owe massive credit to the management and many trainers in all of these local clubs, the ticket sellers, those who fundraise, those who get pitches ready, those who fill the bottles and those who give lifts. The fabric of Ireland is held together by an army of volunteers who give of their time so selflessly. The Government really needs to up its game in this regard and match the public support with proper funding for facilities as we see in other European countries. We need to see far more project support through the large-scale sport infrastructure fund. We see €400 million committed to projects related to the Ryder Cup in Adare. I am not knocking it but the Government's attitude towards the working-class sport of soccer is another story and this needs to change.

The Minister of State will be relieved to know I am not going to name all of the football clubs in Dublin West because there are too many. It shows the strength of football in our community. The clubs exist not because of Government funding but in spite of it. Most of the money they use in their clubs is received through fundraising. They have to go through hoops to get every cent. Some of the figures are staggering, with 245,000 registered players, 80,000 volunteers and 60 clubs, and there will be 100 clubs next year with regard to Football for All. As a lifelong Bohemians supporter I have visited most stadiums in Ireland and I hope that one day in a united Ireland we will have a united league. I am genuinely shocked that the Minister of State can talk about the growth in the League of Ireland without being deeply embarrassed. Yes, the growth in attendance across the League of Ireland has skyrocketed but this is in no way accredited to anything the Government has done. Most grounds are in dire need of refurbishment and some need to be completely knocked down and rebuilt. Only one ground in the Twenty-six Counties can hold a European match. The credit for the massive increase in interest lies solely with the clubs. The Minister of State spoke about the massive increase in women's and girl's football, and it is fantastic, but the lack of facilities is shocking. We have girls and boys in our public parks with zero toilet facilities. We have many clubs still using steel containers as changing rooms and club facilities. This year due to the bad weather many grass pitches were closed for months on end, putting massive pressure on the all-weather facilities. Some are lucky to have them and most are not. Beyond national pride, football also delivers a significant economic and social value. Grassroots football has shown a €1.8 billion social return on investment, with €17.64 for every €1 invested in the sport. Last year the FAI presented an €80 million plan over 11 years to build infrastructure. Think about the fact that greyhounds and horses got a 2026 budget allocation of €99.1 million for one year and think of the statistics I listed at the beginning. The vast majority of the people oppose the upcoming Ireland-Israel game. It is beyond comprehension, given the team with members of the murderous Israeli army and I will not insult the victims of genocide by calling it a defence force. I will do my utmost to prevent that game from going ahead. I will leave the Minister of State with this. On 16 July 2014 at approximately 3.30 p.m. Israeli forces fired three missiles that killed four boys while they were playing football on Gaza City's fishing beach. I will never forget that and I believe most people will never forget the scenes of those four young boys playing football. How dare the Government stand here and allow the game to go ahead?

I echo the comments about grassroots football and the dire lack of funding. The way the clubs manage to provide a service is incredible. I will start by condemning the carry-on of the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, in stopping the funding for the entire League of Ireland based on one event, which was a flare being thrown on a pitch. He thinks that flare is a declaration of war but he is fine with what the Israelis are doing apparently. I will focus my comments on the Ireland-Israel game. Of all the things that have happened in recent times, it is absolutely disgusting that the Irish Government, which is meant to be a neutral anti-imperialist country, is meant to support the ICJ case against Israel and is meant to support the Palestinian state and people, would not only consider that the game is appropriate but would actively insist and put pressure on the players and the team to play it. Oscar Wilde said that a cynic is someone "who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". That exemplifies the Government and the people leading it. They have got absolutely no moral backbone whatsoever. The Government is out of touch on this like it was on the fuel issue and the cost of living. It is way out of touch with where people are on this issue. This game should not happen. It will not happen, in my opinion, because I think people are going to mobilise. I think they will protest and will stop this game. I noticed that at 6 p.m. tonight, a campaign was launched online to stop the match. This is the beginning; it is the opening salvo in it. Simon Harris said we should decouple sports and politics. We would love to. That is an absolutely facetious thing to say. The Minister of State knows there is no separation. Presumably, the Minister of State is okay with Russia not participating in FIFA. It is, therefore, a political entity. Micheál Martin said it should go ahead and, obviously, we have already talked about the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, saying that the team has no connection to the genocide. This is where the Government is absolutely and utterly wrong. The Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, said the same thing. First, let us have a look at the destruction of sports facilities. Let us have a look at the destruction with 1,007 athletes, at least, being killed in the genocide including 421 footballers, most of them kids; 90% of the infrastructure in Gaza destroyed; and 288 facilities destroyed. The cruelty has not stopped. This is not a normal football federation. I will give the Minister of State the facts again. Six Israeli teams currently play in occupied Palestinian territory in direct contradiction to FIFA and UEFA's own rules but, of course, FIFA and UEFA, being so corrupt, do absolutely nothing about it. Amnesty has noted that UEFA and FIFA are providing funding to the Israel Football Association, which is then giving it to clubs in the illegal settlements. Three of the biggest teams in Israeli football, namely, Beitar, Maccabi and Hapoel have a horrendous history of racism against Palestinians and a lot of the players playing on the national team play for those clubs. A popular chant for Maccabi is, "Let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs". Another one is, "Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there." Does the Minister of State think that is appropriate? Does he think that is normal? Yet, the Government is insisting on normalising this team. It is going to give them visas. They do not even need visas - Palestinians need visas; they do not - to come to this country with their entourage, which is actively participating in a genocide in Palestine and now in Lebanon, and the Minister of State thinks that is okay and that is moral. It is absolutely despicable. I also want to mention that Beitar, the team Netanyahu supports, has never signed an Arab. In the children's game, they separate Arab and Jew on the basis of apartheid. Members are in the IDF and one of the players is putting up videos about his participation in the attack on Lebanon as well. The women's team put their IDF jerseys on and so forth. I do not want to run out of time; I just want to finish with a couple of things. The Palestine solidarity movement is one of the most positive things that has happened in this country and in the world because it is an antidote to the hate, racism and misogyny we have seen in society. I am appealing and have confidence in this regard but this movement and trade unions and grassroots clubs need to build a massive rank-and-file campaign to stop this match from happening. We need to organise meetings in areas. We need to organise meetings of clubs. It is unbelievable that we have to put Bertie Ahern up as an example. Bertie Ahern refused to issue visas to the Yugoslav team because of the Balkans war at the time. Charlie Haughey intervened about South Africa and apartheid. It is not that they are great; it is just that the Government is so pathetic in comparison and that is really saying a lot.

First, I wish to say that I am personally very grateful to grassroots football and youth football in my area and to all the people - the managers, coaches and officials - who put in their time, as is the case in area after area in town, city and county across the country. These amazing people put their time and energy into me and my teammates on a voluntary basis. I played for nearly every club. Cabinteely Football Club was my first club. They were a tiny club then. Now, they are up in the League of Ireland. Then, St. Joseph's in Sallynoggin had a fantastic team in the schoolboy leagues. They were just wonderful people and it is still a really brilliant club. Both clubs have produced players for the English leagues and internationals. I played for Ballybrack Football Club, again, another great club. I have a great memories of them. I played for Dunedin football club and St. Joseph's, Glasthule, in the Leinster Senior League. I played for UCD. There were all of these amazing people and so many other clubs in the area. Joey's had a better clubhouse than most but in many cases, people were often getting changed in the rain under streetlights in pretty poor facilities or in containers in pretty awful situations. A shower was fairly unheard of when we were playing football. The thing about it is, that situation has not changed for lots of clubs, as has been said. I was playing 30 years ago. Sallynoggin Pearse, which was mentioned earlier, which was originally Pearse Rovers, was the first team that Paul McGrath - one of our greatest ever players - played for. It is a small club now with two senior teams. They have been fighting since 2007 for a new clubhouse because the old clubhouse is gone. It was a tin can. They have been fighting since 2007. They got planning permission but the council has basically not delivered for them. They are now in an arrangement with Granada, which was also mentioned earlier, which is primarily girls' football teams. It is an amazing success story for girls' football in our area. They have just two senior teams but they are twinned with Granada and they share the same pitches. I was just talking to Richie, one of the main officials in the club, on the phone, who said the people in Sallynoggin are really angry and annoyed as are, obviously, the club officials, that the young women have to change in the open in the fields because there is no clubhouse. As has been mentioned, the lack of all-weather pitches is totally unacceptable. Teams are not able to play for weeks because of the lack of all-weather pitches. Often, we will say things when the national teams do well and, absolutely, give plaudits to the women's national team and in respect of the renaissance we have seen with Troy Parrott and all that in Irish soccer. Let us hope it continues. However, these things do not spring out of nowhere. We have to put in the resources and support. All those volunteers and people are putting enormous work into our young people because it really matters to the young people. I was not an angel when I was when I was young - far from it, actually - but if it was not for football-----

He is still not.

If it was not for football, it could have been a lot worse, let us put it that way. It is true that the team ethic, the discipline and all that kind of stuff people are taught by football really stands to them for the rest of their lives. It creates friendships and networks and does things for the community. We cannot measure the value of these things. They are so important. However, we need to put the resources into ensuring that clubs I mentioned like St. Joseph's, Dalkey United, Granada, Pearse and all these teams that are fighting for all-weather pitches have decent facilities. As we are building residential development all over the place, we need to provide the facilities and amenities. In the last minute, I want to talk about the Israel-Ireland match. In 2016, a young man called Muhammad Khalifa visited Ireland. I was involved in it - Gaza Action Ireland organised the tour. He was then 12 years old. He was from Gaza. Ballybrack Football Club hosted his team from Gaza, Al Helal FC. The young Gazans beat our team, Ballybrack FC, 2-1, but it was a great day and a great event. He went on to play for the Palestinian youth team. Last year, he was murdered by an Israeli air strike with his brother and seven members of his family. His life was destroyed. I was talking to my friend Dr. Abdul Fattah Abu Srour. He works in Aida refugee camp and is involved in the football pitch that the Israelis are trying to destroy in that camp. It is just a small five-a-side or seven-a-side pitch. The UN experts have said that Israel should be boycotted at international level for its breaches of international law. Other teams are doing it. Russia was thrown out of international competition for what it was doing in Ukraine. How can our Government not demand that this game is boycotted, that Israel is thrown out of international competition and that this game does not go ahead?

I welcome these statements. Football can be a cornerstone of our lives and memories. It can bring the goodwill to bring communities together. I think back as far as Italia 90 and the heartbreak caused by the likes of Schillaci and so on, and what they did to bring a nation to a stop and then break our hearts. More recently, in Prague, we thought we were on the cusp of achieving World Cup qualification. Some 1.6 million viewers tuned in for that game. That just shows how much interest there is in our national team. Our ladies have been doing us very proud. They won last night and I wish them the best of luck at the weekend. Acording to the FAI figures for the numbers of players and volunteers, there are 250,000 players and 80,000 volunteers, yet only 34% of females have access to a toilet and 10% have access to indoor facilities. In my area, midlands soccer looked to come together to have a centre of excellence for schoolboys and schoolgirls to be able to play on multiple pitches but did not get planning permission. They are back to square one. They are already on the meter and are spending money that could have been put into lights, Astroturf or whatever the case may be. Instead, the money is going into bureaucracy. That should not be the case. We need to figure out how to work with such organisations to ensure their money is going directly to the sport rather than the bureaucracy along the journey. That is a matter we will have to address. We also need to look at multi-use facilities. I know this is something that the Government is referencing in the context of sports capital funding and that it is considering how we can bring multiple sporting codes together. That would be very much welcomed. There is also an added layer in respect of community facilities. In my constituency, Moneygall has a state-of-the-art playing pitch and has applied to the Department of Community and Rural Development for funding to develop a community facility that could also be a changing room. We have to look at multiple layers of joined-up thinking at government level so there is not just a reliance on sports capital grants and we do not put on the blinkers and go down a tunnel. Let us try to expand it and see can we look across all aspects of government to bring funding together so that we can maximise that impact and make sure it has a real significance across all sporting codes. I look at the facilities and see the impact. I then look at larger, high-appeal matches and see the prices for which tickets are going. We have done nothing to address ticket touting. Where there is crime and where we see communities that have been affected by crime, we are taking the funds of criminals identified by the Criminal Asset Bureau and putting them into those communities that need them the most. We should do something similar in respect of ticket touting. We should go after touts by applying additional resources and ensuring that where they are identified, any funds are used to improve local facilities. That would be a productive service in supporting the likes of football. Where we are at in relation to facilities is that we have made an awful lot of progress but certainly need to do a lot more. I would welcome an announcement of sports capital funding. I look forward to working with groups right across my constituency to ensure we can maximise delivery for us on the ground.

I pay tribute to Republic of Ireland captain, Nathan Collins, who, like me, is a native of Leixlip. We both went to the same school, Scoil Bhríde. That is where the similarities end. On the football pitch, we were very different. Nathan is a lovely fella. He has been around the town and is a brilliant role model. I was also lucky enough to grow up on the same estate as Emma Byrne. I was across the green from her. She is another brilliant role model for Ireland. She was excellent with Arsenal. She was the year below me in school. I know the impact she made on women's sport, not only on the pitch but also off it. She has been transcendent and we have seen how the game of football has grown and developed for women in this country. Andrew Omobamidele is also from my estate in Leixlip. We in Leixlip have been very successful when it comes to football in my lifetime. When I think about football, I think about people such as Larry Kenny and Ray McCauley, the men who were there for me when I was six, seven and eight and went along with my brothers to the local football pitch at Leixlip United. Those were the lads who coached and inspired us, and inspired a generation of people. I also think of my other coaches and have the opportunity to think of them today. People such as Colm Harper, Liam L'Estrange and Tony Ryan are no longer with us but also made a huge contribution. That is where I want to think about the volunteers and how we can support them here today. North Kildare is a growing area with a need for growing infrastructure across all our football clubs. I look at Leixlip United, with Paul Martin in charge. I look at Liffeybank FC, with Jim Keating, who was in my office recently looking for facilities. There are also Fiachra Kirwan at Maynooth FC, Debbie Morone at Ballyoulster United AFC and Derek Meaney at Celbridge Town AFC, which recently launched a new campaign for Astroturf in Celbridge. Those are the football clubs that are closest to me. I know there are other football clubs looking for even more, and we need to support them. I look forward to supporting them through the capital grants, which I know will be coming soon. We can see in the areas where we are building houses - and in north Kildare we have been fortunate to have built houses and apartments - that we have been slow to develop the social infrastructure behind them. We have been completely reliant on volunteers in the area. We must ensure that we have the facilities for the pitches. Liffeybank was sharing with Confey Celtic. It does not even have toilets that children or the ladies' team can use in close proximity. I am consistently having discussions with Kildare County Council to get that resolved. It is a basic facility. Deputy Boyd Barrett referred to the issue in the clubs in his area. While we are building the houses, we have other sports and facilities. As Deputy Clendennan alluded to, we must ensure we have multi-use facilities. Kerdiffstown has been a model. There are football pitches laid out and AstroTurf. With development levies in councils, that should be the place to which we are going. Deputy Quinlivan is in the Chamber. In Limerick city, there is not necessarily space to develop but we need to have pitches for hurling, soccer and rugby in a multi-use facility. That is key, as we look towards the sports capital grants and, indeed, how we run things in the future. Ultimately, we need to have facilities for future generations. We need to have the places from which the next Nathan Collins will come. Just as important as the next Nathan Collins, we need to think about the children who might not necessarily have that talent but who want to be able to play with their friends. They want to turn up, whether for the first team, the second team, the blue team, the red team, the yellow team or the fifth team. We need to ensure there is space for them and their parents. All that most of us are trying to do is to make sure we have the best community possible. Football has helped to shape many of those communities, including, as I have laid out, my own. I want to be part of that and I welcome the opportunity to speak on the issue.

I welcome this discussion with the Minister of State. The comments by Deputy Clendennen brought me reminders of years ago. The World Cup in 1990 was after my first year in college. I flew to Germany to work for the summer. We arrived where we were due to work for the summer and the first thing we looked for was a place to watch the match before we even went to where we were staying. I recall the quarter-final game against Italy going to extra time. I was meant to go back to work at the hotel. I was doing a split shift. I remember ringing, trying to talk in German and explain to them that I could not come back because I had to watch the penalty shoot-out. Luckily enough, I kept my job for the rest of the summer. I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak. Football, like all sports, gives us great memories and we need to praise the work being done by the FAI, in recent years in particular, in bringing footfall. I think of Longford Town FC. I had not realised I could not wear a jersey here, but I am a proud supporter of Longford Town Football Club, which has strived in difficult times in a small county to make sure we stay in the League of Ireland. We have had our successes down the years of winning cups and getting into the premier division. I pay tribute to Jim, Caroline and everyone involved in the club for the work they do to keep the fantastic facilities. A wall was blown down in a storm last year. The club came together with some funding from the FAI and made sure the wall was built. It was great that supporters got involved to make sure that facility got back up and running. We have seen the significant investment by the Government in the academies. If we want a strong future for Irish soccer at an international level, we need to continue to invest more. I am supportive of us increasing that investment over a number of years to bring it up to a level equal to that in other countries to make sure we have success. We need more 5G pitches to be available for the clubs that feed into our league clubs. It is important we identify areas where there is a lack of facilities and make sure we have enough facilities to play underage games. We got information from the FAI about our stadiums. Some of the infrastructure in some areas is probably some of the worst in Europe. We are coming up to Euro 2028 and we are talking about a legacy from that, which has to be proper infrastructure, academies and proper facilities, particularly for ladies'. There are limited facilities for ladies' football. That legacy also has to be making sure that men and women have the facilities and opportunities to maximise their potential on the football field and give us far more memories in the future.

I congratulate the Irish team on last night. It was a wonderful success and I wish it well at the weekend. More important to me on a local level, Ferns United is in the Leinster Football Association, LFA, final this Sunday and I wish them well - Tiny, Terry, Paul and the girls. I went to see them a few weeks ago and I was taken aback by the family and community spirit there. The club is not even in the town of Ferns - it is on a crossroads - but the level of engagement of the team on and off the field with the people who were there after the game and what they are giving back to the community has to be commended. Regarding football as a whole, when Ireland are doing well, the whole nation is lifted. It really is. I come from a hospitality background. I was working in 1990 and for all the world cups and it brings so much business and prosperity. People are in good form. I remember visiting some people in hospital at the time in 1990 and it did not matter how sick they were. They were glued to the television when the Irish lads had the jersey on. We should never underestimate that. What happens on the pitch is important, but that shows a need for more support on the pitch and funding. Let us start at grassroots. We need to continue. The sports capital fund is incredible. It gets to the little clubs like Ferns United, which are heavily reliant on fundraising. I see them shaking buckets on the street in Bunclody. It is still going on. They still sell lotto tickets every Sunday night, but we need to continue a bit of both, with support from the Government, including local councils, and the clubs will do their fundraising. On facilities and infrastructure, I was interested to listen to James McClean talking recently about how he felt and what a product we have now. We are right there. We are climbing up, but do we have the infrastructure? Do we have the pitches to match it? Not yet. We are definitely not yet there. If we want the new Katie McCabes or Troy Parrotts, we will have to continue this investment. I will make a point about investment and large foreign investors coming in and buying clubs. I have seen my colleague Deputy Joanna Byrne up front in operation and I have to commend her on the work she has done. I have met friends of hers she does not realise I have spoken to and they could not speak more highly of the work she has done for the club. We might not agree on everything, but I have been up there and involved in matches with her and I know her heart and soul are in the club. If people like her are being removed from the FAI and the club scene, it will be our loss. Volunteers are the backbone. We can talk about money all we like. I remember in my youth jumping over the wall in Gorey and going to the pitch. There is a guy there now, Joe Cullen, from Gorey Rangers. He is not in great health. He was my first manager and I will never forget the joy I got. I was a sub for the first seven games, but at my eighth game he gave me the jersey and it was a great lift. There is also the likes of Dano Kinsella, the current chair of the club, who is not in good health.

Thank you, Deputy.

Those people have to be recognised and we wish them well.

We all hoped to be making these statements while looking forward to Ireland being in the upcoming 2026 World Cup. Unfortunately, despite the heroics of the boys in green, they fell just short. However, to give credit to them, their coaches and especially their fans, the journey gripped the nation and has enthused thousands, especially young boys and girls. I am hopeful that their efforts will be the catalyst for another rejuvenation of Irish football. In recent years, there has been tremendous growth in the number of women and girls participating in football. A lot of credit for this has to go to the women's national team. In recent years, they have given us tremendous highs with their World Cup journey and while the current European qualifiers may not be going as well as they or we had hoped, they remain incredible role models for aspiring young athletes across the island. The fact they have performed so well is even more impressive considering how underfunded and neglected football has been in the State for years. The biggest problem we face is the lack of infrastructure and facilities and until we address this, we will be on a hiding to nothing. Many sports grounds are not fit for purpose. For instance, many still do not have changing rooms for women players, basic stuff. Supporting grassroots football is important for integration and cohesion. In working class areas I represent across Limerick, clubs such as Ballynanty Rovers, of which I am a lifetime member, Geraldines AFC, Star Rovers, Moyross United and many others offer a hub of community activity. It is the volunteer men and women coaches, groundspeople and unsung committee members who keep our local leagues thriving. However, if local clubs are to continue to develop the champions of tomorrow, they need support today. If we want to develop our homegrown talent, we must invest more in football academies. The Government has left football academies short by allocating €3 million instead of the €4.5 million requested. More investment is needed. Government party manifestos and that of Sinn Féin commit to increasing betting tax by 1% and this should be put into large-scale sports infrastructure. Before I conclude, in the short time available to me, it would be remiss of me not to mention my local team, Treaty United. It has done incredible work over the years promoting the sport in Limerick. The women's and men's academies continue to attract promising talent. Many have ended up in the Irish team. While the results for the men's team have not gone our way yet this year, I have no doubt that under the leadership of Tommy Barrett, the boys can turn it around. The women's team have started well this year and their 3-2 win over Cliftonville has pushed them right up the table. Irish football has solid foundations. Our national team have reignited our passion for the game-----

Thank you, Deputy.

-----but we must do much better and that improvement will require investment and State support.

I will repeat what everyone else has said, that if we are to get serious about soccer - we have seen the absolute success of the League of Ireland lately - we need to put the money required into academies. We all know about the deficit in infrastructure. Many of us see it on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and it is not good enough. It is not good enough for all those who attend. The Minister of State and I had an interaction recently about what the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, said about a plague on all your houses. While an issue needed to be dealt with, particularly what happened in Oriel Park and flares in general, that was an absolute slap in the face of all those who put the time in and volunteer for clubs, everything from grassroots up to senior clubs in the League of Ireland. If we are going to talk about that element of volunteerism, recently, Muirhevna Mór Football Club was awarded a Louth County Council civic award on the basis of 50 years of real work. As much as the club is having success at the moment, it has had some recent tragedies. We remember Martin "Gilser" Gill and Ciarán "Skinny" Bond, people who put in a huge effort over a long time and will be badly missed. We all welcome what we saw with Heimir Hallgrímsson and Troy Parrott and we almost thought we were back to Jack Charlton and Ray Houghton - not this time. Obviously, it is different for the women's senior team who are absolutely flying. Long may it last. We will need to see large scale sports infrastructure funding and Oriel Park will need to see it more than anywhere else. We are finally some good days, having had our recent problems. I thank and commend the club and I hope it continues with Ciarán Kilduff, Daryl Horgan and all of the rest of the team. I could talk about multiple teams. I could talk about everybody from Glenmuir FC to Bellurgan, and I have to mention Castletown Belles or I will not be forgiven by Mackers and Erin. I could talk about Bay FC, Quay Celtic and Woodview Celtic. I even played in Rock Celtic the other week and Bellurgan FC. Bellurgan actually allowed me play on a proper team.

The Deputy's time is up.

I know that. Everyone here has properly commended Joanna Byrne-----

The Deputy must do it in his time.

-----for standing by the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people-----

I call Deputy Gogarty.

-----and it is a disgrace what has been done.

Deputy Ó Murchú, please.

She has paid a price but we have to commend her volunteerism and her commitment to justice.

Deputy Ó Murchú, you divil. I call Deputy Gogarty.

Deputy Ó Murchú is out of time.

I am a great sports fan. I play GAA. I play five-a-side, six-a-side and eight-a-side in Celbridge and Leixlip. Some might have seen me with a crutch in here which I lent to another Deputy. Of course, some rag put it all over social media. The reason I had the crutch in the first place is because my knee is damaged from playing eight-a-side last Friday when I went in full belt in a tackle and someone's knee went through the side of my knee. I would do it 100 times over to be able to play football. That is what so many men, women, boys and girls get so much enjoyment out of. Long may it continue. I was playing on an AstroTurf pitch and that is the first point I want to get to: the shortage of AstroTurf facilities around the country. You could compare it with Iceland, which has top class indoor and outdoor facilities. You might say it is snowy or icy in Iceland but it rains incessantly in Ireland. With climate change, we need to revisit our policy towards grade 3 and 4 AstroTurf pitches and the elite level ones. There are quite a number of clubs in my constituency. I will not try to mention them all, but on the men's side the biggest one is Lucan United and on the women's side it is Peamount United. They are both fantastic clubs and Lucan United will be playing in the new FAI national league shortly and I wish them all the best. One thing Lucan United mentioned directly to me as an elected representative is the shortage of all-weather pitches for youngsters coming up. It is impacting the GAA as well. During the Clonburris SDZ debate, I pointed that out. Unfortunately, for various reasons I will not get into, Sinn Féin, People Before Profit, the Labour Party and the Social Democrats voted down motions to move housing towards the train station, go up a level or two and create space for all-weather pitches. That did not happen. It was appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála which said not to worry, all of these things will come. Through successive governments, these things have not come and they are not going to come. South Dublin County Council has one shared GAA, rugby and soccer AstroTurf pitch in the Clonburris SDZ and a couple of smaller, across the pitch facilities for a population that could be in excess of 25,000. That is not sufficient. We have to start looking at all-weather pitches or properly drained grass pitches. There will have to be multi-use for different sports. There is one in Adamstown where there are two soccer pitches and a GAA pitch across and so many people get great use out of that. Japan is one of the world leaders in pitches that are for the more casual type of sport. We need to encourage people to get involved in sport at all levels, especially promoting sport for women. Women have lacked basic toilets in so many clubs, even at elite level, for many years. That type of investment needs to be redoubled. I note the FAI has a new 2026-2029 strategy and it is to be hoped the old days of financial mismanagement have passed by. We need a combination of national funding for the elite side of things and I pay tribute to the women's team. I hope they repeat the double against Poland this weekend and in relation to the men's team, but we need to keep investing in sport.

We are talking about something I am very passionate about myself, being a soccer fan since I was four or five years of age. I have the luck or misfortune, whichever way you look at it, of following Arsenal Football Club.

Likewise.

It started when Liam Brady, David O'Leary, Frank Stapleton and Pat Jennings played there. There were I think seven Irishmen playing with at the time so it was like watching Ireland play instead of watching Arsenal play. We are suffering at the moment but I think we are holding out Sporting CP at the moment. It is 0-0 and we are 1-0 up on aggregate so it looks like we are heading to a semi-final, but at the same time, we were suffering a bit the previous weekend. I listened to a lot of the debate. As I have said, I have a serious interest in this all of my life. We are always talking about separating church from State but we should certainly separate sports from politics to a degree. Obviously, there is funding needed or whatever. I have very serious concerns about that upcoming game people do not want the Republic of Ireland to play. We obviously know what would happen if that was the case. We would be kicked out of every tournament that is coming up. That would have to be a decision made by UEFA, not a decision made by the FAI. If it did, it would probably be the end of Irish soccer as we know it for the next ten years. We cannot let that happen. I will not go into the details of the shocking wars that are out there. We know where they are but I would certainly never agree with anyone saying we should sideline our international team from playing with anyone. That is not a decision the FAI can make, it is a decision that UEFA has to make. If UEFA make it then, we know that, going forward, our football teams can take part in other competitions and not be thrown out of them. I respect other people and some people here in the Dáil have been treated poorly because of their honest opinion. I am certainly not having a personal go at anyone but that is my view. I am just looking at the bigger picture of soccer in general. I look at the League of Ireland. I watch it and have an interest in it. I do not get a chance to go to games. Coming back to local level, I worry about how we develop. If you look at Max Dowman playing for Arsenal. He is 16 years of age and the youngest kid who had ever scored a goal in the English premiership. How does the club mature that guy? It has had him since he was he was 13 or 14. I look at people in west Cork like David Hall and others who put every human effort they can to promote young people - I would say literally out of their own pocket - to try to get them from where they are to where they could be. Some of these people can be superstars if they get the right supports, training and funding. I know there is a lot of money spent on sports capital projects. I am not here to criticise anybody about sports capital projects. The money is out there but I just wonder are we really looking at huge talents out there, promoting those talents and taking them from where they are to where they could be? Can we get another Max Dowman? Can we get another Katie McCabe? I know I keep thinking of Arsenal players here, but anyway. Katie is an incredible soccer player for the Irish women's team and she is really passionate and has drive, along with other great soccer women out there. Last night was proof of that with our 3-2 victory. I always throw my eye on a match and it is a bad habit. If I am with somebody, it goes out the window because I keep looking at the television if there is a soccer match on. I was watching, with a bit of delight, Leeds United beat Manchester United the other night but we will not go too strong on smiling at other teams because I might be in a bit of bother myself with my own. It is a good debate. People ask why are we talking about football here? It has given people a lot of enjoyment. I myself try everything, no matter what is on, to try get home to watch Match of the Day. I do not have Sky because there is no point, I am never at home. I get a chance to watch Match of the Day every Saturday night. It is a religion for me to watch the matches. There is a lot of discussion here about sports and sportspeople. Deputy Paul Lawless is not here so I will keep talking away. There are sportspeople out there. We saw what happened at the weekend with Rory McIlroy's fantastic victory. At the bottom of our hearts, it gives us great pride. We saw what Troy Parrott and the Irish team did a number of weeks or months ago. It lifted the spirits of a nation. Sometimes when the nation is down, it needs that kick. We saw it before with Jack Charlton's team. We can remember Ronnie Whelan's volley against the Russians. It was probably one of the finest goals that was ever seen. He never got much praise for it. Ray Houghton got great goals as well. They seem to give a lot of praise to certain people but I just remember Ronnie's volley from well outside in the field and lifted straight into the top of the net. That lifted the nation. I was there at that time. I was there as part of the celebrations. We nearly got there again. Unfortunately, it did not work out for us this time but we needed that. The country needs that bit of a boost. No matter how good the country is going it still needs that bit of a boost. My own local team, Bunratty United, has been very successful down through the years and given passionately. So many volunteers in that Schull club took it to the top level for many years. Then you look down at Drinagh Rangers. They have new facilities put in there and I commend the Government on funding that. That is what it is all about. That is where we can get the talent. I see Liverpool stars have gone down and played there through the years. Even if they are retired, if the Ray Houghtons - or back to the Ronnie Whelans again - and others turn up, people will travel to see them. It gives them a bit of happiness. I heard somebody mentioning community facilities here a while ago. I live myself in a community and I am on the community council in the last parish in Ireland, a place called Goleen on the Mizen Head Peninsula. We built a community facility where both soccer and GAA are played. That is a focus that we need in this country. When funds are spent, everyone in the community should be able to use the same facility. Let the GAA and the soccer work together because the GAA is doing so much huge voluntary work in this country and probably do not get commended on a lot of it. We need to invest more. We need to invest in academies and in bringing the youth soccer players, whether they are women or young men, to their potential. They have potential and that is where we have slipped up in this country. We have not followed it up. Players need money. Parents cannot just fork it out all the time. If you really have a committed parent, they are talking about driving their kid around to all sorts of clubs, training and games all over the place and it is all coming out of the same pocket. We have a young lad in west Cork, a kickboxer, Evan Collins, and he is trying to do the same. He is trying to travel around the world but the funds are not there. We have talented young people who can take it a step further and maybe represent us at the Olympics or whatever but the parents are trying to find the money and they are fundraising. We need to look deeper into where moneys can be put to see how we can bring the very best out in these young people. It is the greatest thing ever. If kids up here in Dublin or wherever are focusing on a bit of sport, they are focused away from the bad things that are going on in the world, whether it is the drugs or the drink. That is where we need to spend our money. I support that any time going forward.

It is a great honour to speak here as somebody who is enthusiastic about Gaelic games and soccer and played those games all my life. We have come an awful long way.

Just to interrupt for a second, can I say it was great to play against the Minister of State in Boyle?

I thank Deputy Gogarty very much. We also played in Old Trafford for Ireland against England. I grew up in Boyle and I was treasurer of that club. Many years ago we played on pitches with wooden goalposts, dry lime, long grass, bushes you togged out in, nets made of rope and cow dung. Things have come on an awful long way. I remember coming up here in 1987 with the then Fianna Fáil Deputy, Seán Doherty, to meet Frank Fahey who was the new Minister for sport. I remember we got £20,000. It was worth nearly £200,000. That built our clubhouse and we have come a long way since that. I thank the lotto but also the Department of sport for the amount of great work that has been done to provide facilities not just for soccer and Gaelic games but for all sports around the country. It has made a huge difference and it is great to see. It is great to see Deputies in the St. Pats, Waterford, Limerick, Dundalk and Drogheda jerseys. I will hop a few balls here; I am a big Rovers supporter. There is only one "Rovers" and that is Sligo Rovers. I understand there is a team in Dublin called Shamrocks. I will get in trouble for this. We got €16.4 million through the sports capital grant for Sligo Rovers. It is a community club. Money went to Bohemians as well. That is what it is about. If you want to get funding in this sports capital grant, you have to have good data and good governance. That is when the money will come out. Again, I thank Tommy Higgins and all in Sligo Rovers. They have a really professional group. I ran a double-decker bus to Germany in 1988. We beat England 1-0. It cost us €295 for two weeks, food kitty and drink kitty, but beating England was priceless. We went 32 years before England beat us again in Wembley in 2020. The victory in 1988 brought on the Celtic tiger because of the amount of pride it gave to Irish people, especially those living in London, Birmingham and around the world, as well as in Ireland. We beat England at their game and no blood was spilt. That is what sport is about. That is what it is really about. The only shareholding I have is 1,000 shares I bought when Fergus McCann was rebuilding Parkhead for Celtic F.C. in Glasgow. They are worth about €2,000 but I am very proud of that club, which has huge Irish connections. I put on record that Ray Houghton, the man who put the ball in the English net, is probably one of the greatest ambassadors we have for soccer. He is a lovely guy and he represents himself really well around the world. A lot of great work has been done and I thank the Minister of State. I thank the then Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, for the €16.4 million that came. I particularly thank Catherine Martin who was the Green Party Minister at the time because she ensured that got over the line. That has made a huge difference. Sligo Rovers will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2028 and the Minister of State who is very close to us will come down and visit that day. Again, it is great to see everyone here. It is good to see Joanna Byrne as well.

I join with other Members who have talked about the value of football and what it does for communities and for the nation. I congratulate both our men's and women's teams for their successes on the one hand and their disappointments on the other but their effort in both cases. Beidh lá eile acu. We have a great foundation to build on despite the disappointment in Czechia recently. I will focus on football at a local level. In Dún Laoghaire, we are blessed to have more than a couple of really excellent local football teams and clubs. I think of places like Joey's in Sallynoggin, St. Joseph's AFC, which is not just the place where I cast my vote at the general election but also an enormous community organisation. People like Ollie Crilly who are involved in running the club there are part and parcel of the community providing a facility particularly for young kids and a feeder than to more serious soccer at older level. Within Sallynoggin, the club is a huge outlet for kids in the area. It is a huge source of competition but also an opportunity for them to build skills and community and become part of teams, which is so important. I understand that Granada F.C. in Blackrock - its name is a portmanteau of Granville and Ardagh, the two housing estates either side of Newtownpark Avenue that originally put together the team - is the largest youth club in the country. It is so active. I am privileged to have been at many of its matches but also to praise it. Its chair, Ciaran Kane, and all the people involved in running the club have taken up opportunities that have been presented to them. For example, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, and specifically Blackrock, created a friendship agreement with Vincennes, which is a suburb of Paris, and now every year a junior team from Granada will go to Vincennes to play in a tournament there and they will often win. I think they surprised people a couple of years ago when they did as well as they did. They are competing with teams from all over Europe in some instances and from all over Paris and all over France. That is an indication of something that soccer, football, can use to build bridges between people. TEK United is another hugely important club with an interesting history. It is named after Sutton's T.E.K., which was a dairy in that area. The founder of that dairy had fought in the battle of Tell El Kebir in Egypt in 1882 and on the crest of the football club there is the sphinx, the year of the battle and the word "Egypt". It is a hugely historic name. It was founded in 1946. It is a hugely important club just next to Stradbrook. In fact, Emily Bolger in my office plays for them as well. We have a great connection to TEK United. There are also Cabinteely FC and Dalkey United FC who colocate with Cuala GAA club. I attended Cuala this morning as it announced an new sponsorship deal with Amgen. Both of those teams have huge community involvement and the local area is so lucky to have so many people who give their time, effort, blood, sweat and tears for the club, as well as the players who commit so much. That is also the case with clubs like Ballybrack FC and Seaford Rock United. There are so many of these teams. They contribute so much. There is no amount of money that would actually supplant what they do for a community. The value they add for a community is enormous in terms of the networks, the comradery, experience, sportsmanship and team-building. All of these things are vital aspects of it. I want to comment specifically on women's involvement because among all of the clubs I have mentioned some are very strong in youth, some are very strong in terms of their success and where their players go on to play but all of them have also committed to women's sport. One of the things that has really blossomed in the past few years is not just women's sport, because it was always there, but our understanding and recognition of women's sport, which was not always there. I attended the club final last year in Tallaght. The feeling at a club match with women is much better than it is with men. There is a much greater family atmosphere and the competition is more fierce.

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.

Tá sé go hiontach go bhfuil an díospóireacht seo ar siúl. Is sórt ráitis atá i gceist agus caint faoi rudaí seachas díospóireacht. Is trua nach bhfuil rún os ár gcomhar gur féidir linn ar fad tacú leis, mar shampla go dtacaíonn Tithe an Oireachtais le gach uile iarracht chun an spórt seo a chur chun cinn le cinntiú go bhfuil infheistiú ceart ann ar gach leibhéal. Mar atá cloiste agam ó tháinig mé isteach sa Seomra agus fiú roimhe sin, táimid ag tabhairt aitheantais don obair leanúnach atá ar siúl acu siúd atá gafa le clubanna sacair, clubanna peile agus gach uile sórt clubanna timpeall na tíre. Mar Pharlaimint, táimid ag tabhairt an aitheantais sin dóibh agus cloisimid iad nuair atá siad ag lorg cabhrach agus cúnaimh. Tá an oiread sin rudaí gur féidir linn a dhéanamh chun cuidiú leo ach go háirithe sna spóirt áit a bhfuil mná ag teacht chun cinn i bhfad Éireann níos mó ná mar a bhí agus ag ráta níos tapúla. Níl na seomraí feistis acu, ní féidir leo gléasadh agus tá easpa leithris agus sin ann. Is jab mór é sin le déanamh nuair atáimid ag cur leis na háiseanna atá ag na clubanna seo. Tá ceantair timpeall na tíre nach bhfuil aon pháirceanna féir acu cosúil leo siúd atá bainteach le Sporting Liberties. Chuala mé Teachtaí ó thuaisceart na cathrach ag caint faoi seo chomh maith. Caithfimid cinnte a dhéanamh de nach bhfuil ceantair ann nach bhfuil páirceanna peile - páirceanna féir nó AstroTurf - cearta acu. Tá fadhb agam leis an astro agus bhí orm labhairt leis an Aire faoi sin cheana gur chóir go ndéanfaimid cinnte de go bhfuil an stuif ceart á chur isteach ann seachas an stuif a thugann ailse do dhaoine. Tapóidh mé an deis seo chomh maith chun cáineadh beag tapa a dhéanamh ar FIFA. B’fhéidir gur chóir don FAI glaoch ar FIFA anois agus gur chóir an duais don tsíocháin a thug sé don demi-God nua sin atá ann, Trump, a tharraingt siar de bharr an chogaidh atá á fhógairt timpeall an domhain; ní síocháin atá sé ag cur chun cinn. Tapóidh mé an deis chomh maith tacú go huile is go hiomlán le mo chomrádaí an Teachta Joanna Byrne as an seasamh a ghlac sí ar son na Palaistíne. Níor chóir go mbeadh muid ag imirt an chluiche sin agus ba chóir don Stáit tacaíocht a thabhairt don fhoireann náisiúnta agus seasamh ceart a ghlacadh seachas an seasamh atá á ghlacadh go dtí seo. Níor chóir go mbeadh Iosrael ag glacadh páirt in aon spóirt idirnáisiúnta ag an stad seo tar éis an áir a dhein sé.

I join my colleague an Teachta Ó Snodaigh in paying tribute to our comrade and friend, Deputy Joanna Byrne, who stood up not just for the grassroots of football, as she does every single day of her life, but also stood up for Palestine and paid a heavy price for it. We thank her for her advocacy. I would not claim to be the biggest soccer fan. I would not dare to. I am here in my Bohs jersey in honour of my grandad who played for the team, although I am reliably informed that I live in a Rovers house, apparently, so good luck to me going home this evening. My grandson, who is also a massive Rovers fan, plays for Corinthians down in Cork. I have seen at first hand with him the benefits that come from soccer and football. He plays soccer, Gaelic football, hurling and everything. I have seen the benefits of sport and specifically the benefits of soccer. I often wonder to myself why it is that it does not get the attention it deserves. I would like to give my own local clubs a shout out: Glebe North, Balbriggan FC, Rush Athletic, Lusk United and Skerries Town. They are never ever done fundraising - Skerries Town has just launched a buy-a-brick fundraiser - and the volunteers are busy, busy. We see millions of euro raised by the betting tax, but this seems to find its way in big numbers into horse racing and big golf tournaments. It does not, though, seem to get down to the grassroots. The danger in this is that the grassroots will not thrive. We all want to see the grassroots game thrive because from our grassroots come the men and women who will grow up to play for their country and do us all proud. They will play for the local team and they will play for the country. That is really important and will be lost unless the Government changes the way it funds soccer and sport in general and actually put the funds where they are needed, that is, into the grassroots and into the academies to get our young people out and playing sport and ensuring they stay and stick with the game through their teenage years.

Aontaím le go leor rudaí a bhí daoine sa Teach ag rá. While I fundamentally disagree with the policies of Sinn Féin, I commend two of their Deputies on record. First, I commend Deputy Pa Daly on his invitation to the football match in Mountjoy. It was a very good match. Now, I could not hit snow off a rope and we did lose the match. I am more of a rugby player by build. I would also like to acknowledge Deputy Joanna Byrne. I saw what she went through and I think it is important that we recognise the principle at stake. It took courage when she spoke out with passion and conviction on Palestine, especially given the repercussions. Anyone, particularly those standing for something they believe in, should be able to stand over their views without facing pressure from external forces out of their roles. I place on record my support for Deputy Byrne and I commend her on standing by her principles on such an important issue. At the same time, I would like to say we did have a good match in Shelbourne FC when her team was visiting. We were sitting beside each other. Thankfully, we won that game. I am a Shels fan. Football would not be the sport of choice but it is definitely a club I have so much admiration for, including the men, the women and the dedicated staff volunteering at a youth level and throughout the club. Progress is being made. A lot of the clubs feeding into Shels, which I represent, are facing challenges around facilities and funding. As for the work being done in Shels on and off the pitch, the additional needs team established by Finian McGrath and Ann Murray is a brilliant example of what football should be about, namely, inclusion, community and opportunity for every child. I look forward to welcoming them to the House in two weeks' time. I commend Ann Murray on all she has done. It does not get enough recognition. She recently invited me to a briefing on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, in sports and how we should encourage young people and change our coaching methods for them. One of the best things I took from that was that when coaches across the north Dublin area asked how they could better teach children, the response was to just let them play, not make them be doing something that puts too much on them and let them enjoy the sport. It was very much taken on board by everyone. That is what grassroots football at its best is about. Going back to what multiple Deputies said, we need to get serious about academies. If we are going to get serious about the grassroots, we need to do so for our men's and women’s teams. I commend them both on how they are getting on. Obviously, we did not get on as well in Prague as we would have liked, but we definitely believed for a good few minutes anyway. The truth, if we are being honest and we have been saying this for years, is that we are not delivering. I welcome that the Minister of State held a meeting with me and other Deputies on this issue. Right now, football in Ireland is upside down. I reached out to the chairs of multiple clubs in my constituency over the past three days. One text I got back said that exceptional weather pitches of clubs that do not have the same form of ownership should be prioritised by Dublin City Council. AstroTurf pitches are closed consistently. The recent success of the men’s and women’s national team started at the grassroots level. It is important to provide facilities that will develop boys and girls at the grassroots level and that will lead to them representing our country with pride. Very simply, that is what everyone has been saying across the board. Grassroots football is the largest participative sport in the country and yet receives nowhere near the capital investment it deserves. This is the reality on the ground. I am blue in the face talking in here about Kilmore Celtic and how its pitches were taken over by another professional club. I have asked the Minister of State to look into this and I would love to see if anything was coming back. There is not only Kilmore Celtic, but also Clontarf, St. Kevin’s, and, on the edge of my constituency, Belvedere, Raheny United, Bayside, St. Malachy's and Ayrfield United FC. Many parents are dedicating their mornings but the facilities are not good enough. If we improve the facilities and get in the toilets in order that young men and young women are not discouraged from playing football, that would really help to keep young people active, build their discipline and provide structure. Níl siad ag lorg go leor rudaí nach bhfuilimid in ann a dhéanamh. Tá sé an-éasca leithreas a chur in áiteanna a bhfuil páistí ag iarraidh peil a imirt. Facilities across the board are inadequate and inconsistent. With regards to AstroTurf pitches, sometimes I think Brent geese have more rights than young kids in this country. We have a huge problem with mental health and with obesity but the majority of the pitches in north Dublin have been waterlogged, especially at the start of this year. I understand that we need to protect nature, but sometimes we need to work together, collaboratively and in parallel to both allow young people to have access to playable pitches and protect nature. The strategic decisions are made from the top down. I am going to do something here I do not do regularly. I am going to mention a club outside of Dublin Bay North, and actually outside of Leinster. Moyne Villa has shown how investment in artificial surfaces can transform participation. Since 2022, there has been more training and more sessions and more players staying involved. Recently, I visited the club’s facilities. I thank PJ Walsh for the invitation. We need to follow up on this and bring this model into place across the board. Bringing back what I saw in Moyne Villa to the context of the clubs in the constituency I represent, and I have said this before in respect of Kilmore Celtic, the toilet facilities on the Oscar Traynor Road need to be properly addressed. Hundreds of kids do not have a toilet. They have to cross the road and knock on someone’s door to go to the jacks. There is a long-standing need for all-weather facilities in the Coolock area. The youth club there should be opened immediately and not delayed and not discussed. An all-weather pitch in Memorial Park has not been touched for five and a half months. That is not a delay. It is a loss of time for young people. They missed training. We had the highest levels of rain in the first three months of this year than we have ever had before. We are all asking about this issue. When we ask clubs to navigate complex grant systems on top of all that, we have to be honest. The grassroots clubs do not have the administrative capacity in some cases to chase these funding streams. I welcome that the Department is bringing the sports capital grant forward. I ask that the clubs get a clear demonstration from the council on how to apply. The bottom line here is that I represent north Dublin and I will always stand for what is right but these clubs are not asking for much. Tá siad ag lorg gnáth rudaí agus tá sé an-éasca dúinn na rudaí atá siad ag lorg a dhéanamh.

I start by acknowledging and thanking Deputy Duncan Smith for requesting these statements. We have seen three and a half hours of statements and a really good, positive debate. The spirit in which the contributions have been made stand in very stark contrast to many of the other debates we have on the floor of the House. That reflects the fact that sport and football in particular brings out the best in everyone and brings people together. We have seen that here today. Through many of the contributions from TDs across the House we have also seen the impact that taking part in sport has had on their lives. It has played such a fond part in their lives and has had a positive impact. One of the contributions that struck me most was that of Deputy Farrelly. He outlined the role he has played with other people in his community, working with a group of young people from the age of seven years old right through as they grew up, in the capacity of coaching them. He spoke not only about the impact it made on him and the people who coached them, but on those kids from a sporting point of view, and also the opportunity it provided for those kids to grow and have leadership provided through sport and the positive impact on their lives. That was my experience as well as I grew up. Like everyone here, I am grateful to the people who played and contributed over the years through volunteering their time to giving me an opportunity in sport. I think back to my time at Scoil Naomh Buadáin and the work that Brian Harris, for example, would have done, giving his time as I played underage with Culdaff Football Club. I think of the role Hugh Diver played and the great example of volunteers. I think back to how football brought together our local community and parish. While we might have had European Championships and World Cups as tournaments which everyone followed, the most important tournament in our parish every year was the parish cup, where each townland would have put in teams. That seven-a-side competition was the highlight of the summer season. The local town land of Cashel even managed to put in two teams, Cashel A and Cashel B. I was glad to be able to make the Cashel B team, which was the highlight of my football career. That tournament was played on a pitch which had a slant on it in Glenealy. There were no dressing rooms at that stage but there was great participation and enjoyment. As an example of how we have seen football grow and develop over that period of time, this past Saturday in Glenview Park, which is now the football pitch in Glenealy and which does have a dressing room and a clubhouse, the under-16 girls won the SFAI under-16 semi-final against Granada, a team from Dublin, in a 1-0 victory, getting to the SFAI under-16 cup final. That speaks not only to the development of the facilities but also the wonderful journey we have seen in relation to female participation and how that has significantly grown and continues to grow in a really exciting way. It also speaks to the fact that we are on a journey that continues, and one that we as public representatives and particularly as a Government must make sure we are supporting ever more strongly, because while our clubs are very much based on the commitment and dedication of volunteers who make such an impact on the lives of those they support and train and the communities in which they are involved, it is really important that we, from a Government and State point of view, support that through investment in facilities and equipment. We have seen a very significant increase in investment in facilities over the years and decades, and we see it in our local communities. That is something we have continued to prioritise and develop very strongly in recent years. A few contributors outlined how over the past six years, in the previous three rounds of sports capital, that six years ago we invested €70 million in the community sports facilities round, four years ago it was €170 million and in the most recent round in 2024, it was €270 million, seeing more than 3,000 clubs and projects being supported through grants. That is something we now need to continue, and we will continue through the community sports facilities fund which we will be launching this year. That is something that can make a real impact and continue the journey that we are seeing at grassroots level in terms of providing the facilities and supporting the work of volunteers. We all know there is pressure because the increase in participation we are seeing across all sports and indeed, in relation to football, is putting pressure on facilities. Where we build those extra facilities, they will be used. They will not be idle; they are very much needed. I very much take the feedback from many across the floor tonight on the importance of all-weather surfaces and prioritising them within the community sports facilities fund. The past three and a half hours, and I have listened very carefully to everyone, has been a really good opportunity to get a sense from people who are very much involved in their local communities and clubs of what the key priorities are, and how best we as a Government can work to support their needs through Government investment. We are seeing a renaissance and real momentum behind football within the country. We have all spoken about how that has been very much led by, and the great energy we get from, our national teams and the escapades and achievements recently. We are also seeing that come through in the League of Ireland, and that is something we want to support and underpin and which we are underpinning through the development and investment we are putting into the academies. That is something we are seeing real progress in over the course of this year. It is something we want to continue to invest in and develop, because it is going to give our young people the capacity to be able to be the best and develop into the best players they can be, and also to see our national league be very much strengthened through those players coming through. A really good development and something we look to support is the development of a third tier in the League of Ireland. I am glad to see three clubs from my own county, Cockhill Celtic in Buncrana and Letterkenny Rovers and Bonagee United in Letterkenny, two in Letterkenny, being among the 15 nationally. Many Deputies mentioned their own clubs which are going to be part of that third tier as well. It is an opportunity to see our league grow. It is all going to be underpinned by us working collectively to support the work at grassroots level and to make sure everyone at local level has that opportunity to participate in sport. I assure Deputies I look forward to working with all of them here in relation to the next community sports facilities fund, which will be opening this summer and which we hope to have concluded by the end of this year to work to support clubs throughout the country in football, but also through all sports. We all appreciate the value of sport of all types in our lives, and wish to support that through that fund over the course of the year ahead. I thank all of the Deputies for taking time to participate in this debate. The fact it has been three and a half hours and so many have contributed shows the importance of sport to our national Parliament. This has been a very worthwhile and valuable use of our national Parliament's time. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle and everyone in the House for their contributions and their work in communities to support clubs within their respective constituencies.

Yes, full participation. Thanks to all.