Both the Senior Minister at the Department of Arts, Media, Communitions, Culture and Sport, Patrick O’ Donovan and Minister of State for Sport and Postal Policy, Charlie McConalogue were present at the Sport Ireland Campus yesterday for the publication of the Core funding Investment announcement.
They were joined by representatives of most if not all of the National Governing Bodies, Local Sports Partnerships and other funded bodies that now know their budgets for the year ahead and were heartened especially by the confirmation that from next year the money would be allocated on a multi-year cycle.
We are covering the funding announcement in detail across Sport for Business, check out the developing story and reaction here.
Given the fact that both Ministers were happy to stay around and engage with the sporting bodies in what was the first ‘open house’ so to speak of the new administration, we thought it would also be worth capturing their speeches which are reproduced below.
Some notable commentary on inclusion and facilities, on funding and an the need to look towards a more collaborative model to stay ahead of significant population growth…
Minister of State for Sport and Postal Policy Charlie McConalogue
It’s a great honour to be appointed as Minister of State with special responsibility for sport. And it’s a role I’m really looking forward to working with all of you on; to support you in your work. And for us collectively to provide the leadership to see the very significant progress we’ve made over recent years continue in the time ahead.
And it’s always great in the times that I’ve been here to come out to this really inspiring facility here, and one as a government that we’re really committed to continuing to develop and expand as well.
That’s been very clear in the new programme for government.
It is very much in train now in supporting Sport Ireland in terms of the development of the new Velodrome and Badminton Centre later this year and also then followed on of course then by the new National Cricket Stadium as well.
The capacity to have top class facilities is of course crucial in terms of ensuring excellence in all of our sports at national level.
But it’s also really crucial in relation to ensuring participation and options to participate in sport and physical activity at local level and in local communities.
And that’s something we want to continue with the journey that we’ve been on as well, and to continue with the progress that we’ve seen.
That planning for our future facilities, and where to locate them is a particular focus as well of our current sports action plan. Because we do want to work to make sure that we’re seeing opportunities in all communities, where young people and people of all ages have the facilities within their community to be able to participate and have the choice to participate in the sports that they’re passionate about and that they want to try and that they want to pursue.
2024 saw the largest ever capital investment by the state in sports facilities and communities across the country through the community sport facilities fund and also through the large scale sports infrastructure fund and the government will continue to support the funding of sports capital projects and I would urge all of you to be proactive as I know you have been and as I’m sure you will continue to be within your organisations as well in promoting and facilitating applications for funding in future rounds of these programs.
Disabilities will be a key focus of mine in my role as Minister for Sport. People with disabilities and those who are marginalized or disadvantaged often face barriers in participating in sport and we must do more to identify and address those barriers and encourage more inclusion and diversity and increase the levels of participation amongst these cohorts.
A person’s disability should not be an obstacle to being physically active. And there’s an obligation on all of us to work to make sure that that is the case.
It’s therefore pleasing as well to see an increased focus on addressing disability inclusion in sport in today’s announcement.
Sport Ireland’s recently published statement of commitment and action to disability inclusion in sport will be a key driver in meeting our needs for increased participation among those with a long term illness or disability over the coming years.
Swimming continues to be one of the most popular sports and recreational activities for people with a disability. And the national swimming strategy published last August is an example to all sports as to how we can develop a suite of actions to increase access for people with disabilities and improve the culture of inclusion.
In 2025, we will enhance support for a vital element of our sporting ecosystem, volunteerism. Because as we all know, volunteers are the lifeblood of our sporting clubs and our communities. And every day, up and down this island, volunteers step up and generously give their time and effort to sport and many other community causes.
Without these people’s selfless contribution, and often at significant cost to themselves, there would not be the sports sector that we have.
The record investment today of €31 million is an increase of €13 and a half million now, or 76 percent, compared to 2018 when our national sports policy was published.
And this increased investment will assist in ensuring the long term sustainability of our sporting organisations and will enable the sector to contribute to delivering increased opportunities for people to participate in a wide variety of sports.
I want again to take this opportunity to personally thank all of you here today and the organisation that you represent for the very valued contribution you are making to Irish society and to the health and well being of our nation and our local communities.
I wish you well and ask you to keep up the really good work that you’re doing.
It’s unlikely I’ll get to speak to all of you today but I certainly look forward to engaging very closely with all of you over the weeks and months ahead.
So thank you John and Una again for the invitation to be here today. Thank you to your board and to your team for the really important leadership and oversight and direction that you’re providing and for the work that you do working with our national governing bodies and our sports partnership and I’m really excited to be here and
about the opportunity to work with all of you in this role over the time ahead.
Minister for Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport, Patrick O’Donovan.
First of all, just thank you everybody that has spoken before me. It’s always a great one when you’re speaking last. You can kick the script to the side because everything has been said already. And you can kind of give your own personal view, which is great.
But I’m delighted to be back. I spent a very enlightening period between 2016 and 2017 as Minister of State for Tourism and Sport, as it was at the time with my colleague Shane Ross. And I had often recourse to come out here to the Sport Ireland team team at the time.
And I remember one of the first things Endy Kenny asked me to do after I was appointed was he sent me to New Zealand. It might have said something that he sent me to the point in the world furthest away from him, but he sent me out there to do a number of things. First of all to figure out how it was that a country of similar population as ours was punching so far above its weight in terms of international competition.
And to see how their structure was different to ours. And it coincided with St. Patrick’s day at the time as well. And we were also tramping the roads, trying to get a few votes for the rugby World Cup, but we leave that for a different day.
But at the time we were also doing the sports policy which is now up for review and it’s a kind of hard to believe that in the period of time that has passed, the transformation that has taken place.
I think looking back when I see the figures now, how it has changed, we were definitely the poor relation in 2016 anyway, with the money that we were getting at the time.
A quarter of a billion euro now is going into sport every year in Ireland.
At the time we had an ambition that by 2027, we would reach 220 million euros. And two years ahead of schedule, and you won’t see the government attacked for it by this by the opposition, or it won’t make the headlines probably on RTÉ this evening, but two years ahead of schedule, in 2025, Government spending and support has exceeded 230 million euros.
And that’s a phenomenal amount of money. And it’s taxpayers money that’s invested in our department to be allocated to Sport Ireland and the national governing bodies for the development of sport and recreation right across the country.
And when you think of what it has produced in the intervening period of time, you know, we have seen internationally, nationally, locally, within our own parishes and our own communities, we can all see the value of it.
I’m the father of three small children and, you know, I wanted to see my daughters have exactly the same opportunity as my son has. And the last time I was here in the department, you know, I put a huge emphasis on gender equality. And I remember some shocked faces at the time, above in the old department, which was on Leeson Street at having the audacity to come up with effective relief.
I thought We’re not going to have change in boards unless we enforce change. I at the time advocated for a 30 percent quota. Now I don’t like the concept of quotas, but I advocated at the time for a 30 percent quota because we needed to do something.
Unfortunately it was rapidly torpedoed by my former colleague Shane Ross. And we lost, we lost a couple of years. We lost a good few years. Until Jack Chambers came back into the department recently as Minister of State and he said that this has to be addressed and that by that stage most of you had already changed how you had operated anyway and the boards of our national governing bodies changed utterly and it was only right that it changed, and now 40 percent balance has been reached.
And now the challenge, I suppose, that I’m going to lay out now to Sport Ireland and national governing bodies and local sports partnerships is around diversity.
Because Ireland in 2016 looked and sounded an awful lot different to Ireland in 2025, and it is going to sound and look a hell of a lot different to Ireland in 2030.
So we’re going to have to change how we look and how we sound as well. And that means that the new Irish and the people that are coming into this country and making it their home, they have to feel part of the national leadership. They have to feel part of the local leadership. They have to first of all feel welcome.
And they have to feel that there is an open door policy for them. And we’re going to have to try in some way to inculcate a culture that it isn’t just on the playing field and here on the track that we will see young women of color or young men of color, but it’s in the boardrooms as well that we will see people who sound different to me.
We’re going to have to do an awful lot more in that space.
When you look at what’s happening in the world at the moment, and the permeation of hate, one of the greatest tools, weapons really to break down barriers of hate is sport. And when you turn on the news now, you really don’t know what to expect out of some people’s mouths any night of the week, you know, what level of hate is going to be spouted by world leaders.
We have a duty and an obligation, I think, in our own communities to say, well, that’s not in our name. It’s not something that we want to represent. And in fact, we want to represent something entirely different. So the people that are presenting the cups and the medals, in five or seven years time should maybe sound a little bit different to all of us that are here today, at least most of us.
I think that as Charlie ventures out now to review the National Sports Policy with all of you, which in itself is a gigantic undertaking. The one thing that I would say is that we’re going to have to look at how we want this country to be viewed and what true lens do we want it to be viewed in 2030 and beyond.
And at the moment, you know, there are some countries when you look through the lens and look at them, is that a really pretty sight? And we can say, well, that’s certainly not the road we’re going to go down.
The last time I was here as well, we put a lot of emphasis on governance.
There were some perhaps not as au fait as they could have been with the spending rules, and some who considered perhaps that it was only the taxpayer’s money and what harm does it make? I think recent developments show that, you know, the taxpayers have a very short fuse when it comes to waste of money.
Whether that is with regard to the overall department or whether it’s in regards to support to Sport Ireland or individual national governing bodies, we have to be cognizant that every time money is spent, allocated by a grant, spent, received, vouched for, or reconciled, that what we say we’re doing is actually what we were told we could do, and that the money that is being spent on our behalf is being spent properly.
And the other thing that we have to be mindful of as well is the dropout of participation. I think there’s a fundamental issue here between ourselves as a department, and I want to recognize Cían and the work that he has done and continues to do in the Department and with other government departments, and specifically the Department of Education.
And, you know, we’re going to have to examine why is it that we’re pumping a whole pile of money into schools and voluntary secondary schools and primary schools every year. And for many of them, let’s be honest about it, for two or three months of the year, the door is locked. There’s a padlock on the gate and the children can’t use it.
And yet in many locations, there isn’t an adequate sports facility.
Then on the other hand, we have, primary schools and secondary schools that don’t have a PE hall despite that PE is part of the curriculum.
I was a primary school teacher and for most of my colleagues, the two subjects that scared the beJesus out of them, out of teaching them were PE and Irish.
And actually there’s two things that I love, and it’s, you know, it’s an awful indictment on us as a country to see where our Irish language is going. But as well as that, to think that in some cases, for safety, children are discouraged from running in the yard at lunchtime, or kicking a ball because the yard has been gobbled up by the latest extension, which is needed because of demographic growth.
We’re seeing, you know, massive improvements in terms of our communities right across the country. Our population is growing at a phenomenal rate. And it will hit six million probably during the duration of this government’s term of office. And that is putting huge pressure on volunteers, on clubs, on fields, on swimming pools, and everything else.
And yeah, you know, we can pat ourselves on the back and say, weren’t we great, we have a quarter of a billion Euros going in now, and we’ve never had such great Olympic successes, but we have to look around the corner, in terms of what’s the population growth going to be like in the next number of years.
And will the field that currently has six or seven matches a week and all the training that’s required, or the track that is booked out continuously, where are we going to put the next iteration of it?
And the next iteration I believe, being honest about it, and this is almost like saying, you know, to somebody that their dog is ugly, but I don’t believe that we can continue to build, you know, a separate GAA field, a separate rugby field, a separate soccer field, a this field, a that field in towns and communities across the country, particularly those that are seeing massive population growth.
We’re going to have to, I think, put an awful lot of responsibility on our local authorities, and I think the LSP’s have a big role in this, that civic centres are going to be much more important in the future. And that means that we have a greater level of planning. and that the Department of Sport and Sport Ireland not just becomes an agent of sports delivery, but it also becomes an agent of planning, both at national, regional and local level into the future.
Because everybody is being inundated by people looking for help financially, and that’s fine, but there is a finite amount of money that individuals and families have, and I think there’s a responsibility going to have to come back on all of us, that collaboratively for the new communities that are going to be built, particularly in in the larger urban population bases, we’re going to have to look far more at the civic model, like they do in France, like they do in other European countries, of municipal facilities rather than individual siloed ones.
And the department are now looking at me saying, why didn’t he stick to the script?
So look, I’m looking forward to the time ahead, and I’m looking forward to, to being back in the department.
This is a great department and you know not every country around the world has the word sport sitting in a government department with a minister sitting in a cabinet. That just doesn’t happen everywhere.
But it is part of what we are as Irish people. It’s part of what differentiates us. Our music, our language, and our sport, and our culture. And the fact that it’s in a cultural department as well, you know, is hugely important because there are an awful lot of synergies that are between sport, culture, music, arts, and the rest.
And that’s why, you know, it really is a lovely department to be in. So look, I just want to thank all of you. The LSPs, the national governing bodies, the board members of Sport Ireland, your executive, everybody who has, you know, put their shoulder to the wheel, my own department as well, and the Exchequer who have provided, as I say, almost a quarter of a billion euros for this year and beyond.
It’s a challenge for us, for Charlie and myself to make sure that money is spent properly. And it’s also a challenge for us to make sure that we get more, and that we get more regionally to challenge diversity, to challenge inclusion, to challenge gender, and to challenge the last remaining glass ceilings that exist in this country for individuals, to see and hear what they bring to the table, to let them know they’re all welcome and all welcome to be heard.
Further Reading for Sport for Business members: Sport’s 32 Items in the Programme for Government 2025-2029
SPORT FOR BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE
The money is good, the promise of it becoming multi-annual based from later this year and the engagement of the Ministers were very strong positives from the afternoon at the Sport Ireland Campus. Plenty more to come on this.
WHAT’S UP NEXT?
We have more detailed analysis of the core funding on Sport for Business and will continue to cover this vital area.
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