Charlie McConalogue

This is an issue that requires careful consideration. To a significant extent, we have to empower NGBs and their membership to have good codes of governance and conduct within their organisations to deal with issues that arise. We would have to carefully consider any step that would bring that into a State body. It would have significant unintended consequences. We are reviewing our national spor…

Sport Ireland is always available to work with national governing bodies in respect of their governance and how they run themselves. In 2023, it set in place the governance code for sport. It also launched the national code of conduct template, which NGBs are encouraged to adopt to make sure the structures and policies they have in place, and within which their membership, oversight bodies and com…

I thank Deputy Coppinger. I have not personally received a legal letter. There was correspondence to our Department. That legal letter was actually addressed to the previous Cabinet Minister, Catherine Martin, but it has been assessed and considered by the Department. As I have said in this House on numerous occasions this week, this is an issue that, from a footballing perspective, is one for the…

What the Deputy has been supporting and proposing in the House this week is not just related to the match, which obviously has dominated the discussion and debates. What she has been supporting and advocating is that all Irish athletes across all sports should not participate in any competitions internationally in which Israel is also participating. That basically means that while the illegal occu…

I absolutely agree with the sanctions against Russia, which have been implemented with unity across the EU and have been replicated at a sporting level by FIFA and UEFA, excluding Russia from competitions.

We as a country have worked to try to get strong sanctions against Israel for its behaviours over the last period of time. At European level, we are seeking the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. To be clear about what Deputy Coppinger is saying, rather than Ireland continuing to lead out politically at international level, as we have done, and which we will do again in passing the…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 69, 78, 103, 105, 114 and 123 together. I thank the Deputy for his question and for his support for the basic income for the arts scheme. The main objective of the scheme is to support professional artists whose creative practice is based in Ireland. The scheme will provide 2,000 artists with a weekly payment of €325 for a period of three years. There has been sig…

I will take Deputy Ó Snodaigh's question first. The budget is allocated for this year to be able to pay 2,000 applicants from September onwards. While every effort is being made to give people early decisions, the payment will be backdated to September so nobody will lose out financially by virtue of any delay in being approved. The budget will be utilised by the end of this year. To respond to D…

I thank the Deputy for his question and his advocacy for this worthy project and his work on it. Significant progress has been made in advancing Ireland’s America250 programme, which is the State’s national commemorative initiative marking the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. It is being delivered across this year and 2027, and the programme is being supported by €200,000 i…

Strong support for this project has also come from the shared island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach in respect of developing the two-year programme. That is important. It is also important that we are undertaking this project on an all-island basis, because all of the island has contributed to the American story and to the development of the American nation over the past 250 years. This h…

I agree fully. The shared experience and history of both parts of our island have been crucial to bringing our island together. When Irish people have gone abroad, from North or South, and built relationships abroad, that has been extremely positive. Those international relationships bring our own island together as well, whether this concerns our shared heritage of people travelling over the deca…

I thank the Deputy for raising this important topic for consideration. Sport Ireland, as the Deputy knows, is the statutory body that we have assigned with responsibility for the recognition of sports in Ireland. As part of the recognition criteria, Sport Ireland must be satisfied that an activity meets the criteria for sport as outlined in section 2 of the Sport Ireland Act 2015, which was adopte…

I thank the Deputy. I agree chess is a great game, one I played from an early age. Any change that is made to the definition of "sport" within the legislation will have repercussions, not just for chess, and will have to be considered very carefully. We do not have any plans to change it but we are just coming to the end of the period covered by our first ever ten-year national policy for sport, …

All topics should be up for consideration. Whenever we come to framing a ten-year national sports policy on the direction of travel for our NGBs and everyone working within sport, it is important to have thorough discussions. As I said about a couple of other matters earlier, let us make sure the consideration and consultation are thorough. All points, including the upsides and downsides, should b…

The LSSIF, as the Deputy knows, was established under the national sports policy to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects to be able to progress. Previously, there was a gap in that there was no such fund to enable larger projects to proceed. While it is aimed primarily at national governing bodies and local authorities, it is also open to other bodies. In this regard, I re…

I acknowledge the Deputy’s point on the need for realistic conversations with all applicants to make sure they are moving forward on drawing down the money. I assure him that those conversations are happening. We want to, and we have delivered the message that, these projects need to progress. The Government allocated the projects funding with the objective of seeing them come to fruition. Betwee…

I assure the Deputy that no project that has been given approval for funding is sitting on funding. We are spending all the money we have, managing the LSSIF funding stream to the nth degree and making sure it is getting invested. Likewise, we want to make sure every project is moving forward. We will have one more round of the LSSIF over the term of the Government. I want that to be as early in …

I thank the Deputy for his question and for his ongoing advocacy for the role that sport plays in our communities. I was glad to join him recently for a visit to Shelbourne Football Club. It was great to see the work happening there. I know the club recently completed a new astro pitch, which is making a real difference. One of my key goals as Minister of State for sport is to see an increase in …

I thank the Deputy. I outlined previously that nearly 1,500 projects have been supported across Dublin through the community sport facilities fund. That has a big impact on communities, as I know the Deputy knows. We want to continue and do more in that regard. The benefit of building those facilities is that we are seeing increased participation. We are particularly seeing more and more young gir…

The Deputy and I could have a debate about which county produces the best footballers. There would, however, be no debate about which county produces the best goalkeepers for the number 1 jersey. We want to ensure that the investment we are making this time around delivers the biggest impact. We want to ensure clubs collaborate. There is some low-hanging fruit in our education system. Schools cou…

There are two key revenue streams associated with the TV licence, which are the revenue arising from television licences sold by An Post as statutory issuing agent and the allocation provided by the Department of Social Protection in respect of the provision of free television licences to recipients of the household benefits package. As I know the Deputy is aware, the number of television licences…

I thank the Deputy. As I said in my initial response, the technical working group on the reform and enhancement of the TV licence has brought forward proposals to that effect. The report from that group has only recently been received by the Department. That will be considered and I have no doubt over the next short period we will step it out in responding to it and plotting the way forward. Ther…

There was a new round recently of those public service grants for coverage and journalism across different mediums, whether that is broadcast or print. Like the Deputy, I have seen the benefit and the impact of that in the increased coverage of what is happening in the public sphere by journalists. It is a very worthy scheme. I will certainly pass it back and ask the Department officials to consid…

I thank Deputy Keogh for her question. As we have just discussed, we are all agreed that local and regional media outlets play a vital role in providing high-quality public service content and in contributing to the diversity and plurality of trusted voices in our media sector, which greatly enhances democratic participation and also provides safeguards for our information space. The Broadcasting …

I hear what Deputy Keogh is saying in relation to the impact of costs but as she knows, neither the Government nor the relevant Department plays a role in formulating or approving the proposed income or expenditure of Coimisiún na Meán or in setting the levy. The preparation of those annual estimates of income and expenditure under Section 26(1) of the Broadcasting Act requires Coimisiún na Meán t…