The Budget for 2014 will be announced by the Minister for Finance next Tuesday, October 15th and despite the many compelling social and economic arguments in favour of investment in sport, indications are that sport is preparing for a significant further cut around current spending.
Discussions between Ministers at Cabinet have yet to fully resolve in terms of where cuts will be attributed across the range of Government spending and sport is only a small part of that mix but Minister Leo Varadkar was guarded in his comments at the National Sports Campus this week and at a meeting with National Governing Bodies of sport earlier this week.
It is feared the cuts could be deeper than five per cent and possibly bring spending back to a low not seen since 2006.
This is despite the World Health Organisation statement that:
“Physical activity and healthy sports are essential for our health and well-being. Appropriate physical activity and sports for all constitute one of the major components of a healthy lifestyle, along with healthy diet, tobacco free life and avoidance of other substances harmful to health.
Available experience and scientific evidence show that the regular practice of appropriate physical activity and sports provides people, male and female, of all ages and conditions, including persons with disability, with wide range of physical, social and mental health benefits. It interacts positively with strategies to improve diet, discourage the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, helps reduce violence, enhances functional capacity and promotes social interaction and integration. Physical activity is for an individual; a strong means for prevention of diseases and for nations a cost-effective method to improve public health across the population.”
That final line of cost-effective should resonate stronger within a country where we spend more than 100 times the amount on public health provision than we do on public health promotion. There is an obvious gap in the logic that has never been fully defended.
Those who argue that we just don’t have the money so we have to cut remain blind or impervious to the further compelling evidence that investment in sport generates substantial economic growth and activity as well as the health and social benefits.
Figures published this year in the UK showed that the Gross Value Added figure from sport was at an all time high of over €20 Billion in 2010, well before the full impact of the London Olympics, and that sport was ahead of insurance, accounting, legal services and the motor industry as part of the overall economy.
Across the world it is growing faster and stronger, with participation levels rising rapidly, job creation being facilitated by investment in sport and overall benefit providing a return on investment that puts other government spending in the shade.
The final decision on budgets is never made until the final days. If the knife is hovering over sport we have to do everything we can as a community with an interest in it and as a nation to stay the blade and invest in sport for the social, economic and long term health benefit of the people of Ireland.
Current spending should not be cut, it should be increased as the returns will justify it and if that is politically deemed impossible then it should be left as is. And if the current spending cuts cannot be reversed in the mind of the economic guru’s then a repeat of the capital grants programme that can channel money into effective projects at local level should be revived again.
We cannot sit by and let sport wither here when it thrives elsewhere. That would be a crime against our own future.
Sports Analytics Round Table – Oct 24
Sports Tourism Seminar – Nov 07
Irish Sponsorship Awards
Sports Philanthropy Round Table
Youth Sports Conference
Sport for Business 20/20 for 2015 – Oct 07 2014
