Brendan Smith pushes for new Sports Capital Programme early in 2026

I hear that Deputy David Maxwell knows the Sports Capital Programme has been extremely beneficial across our two counties at Cavanagh and Monaghan. Voluntary groups and sporting organisations have worked extremely hard to develop facilities, to provide new and upgraded facilities. No matter what parish you go to, it's great to see the top quality facilities that are available. Minister Rodonovan, unfortunately, Deputy Maxwell and myself don't have county councils with large cash reserves. We don't have a strong rate space, unfortunately. But our two councils, to their credit, are developing local facilities in conjunction with local sporting and voluntary organisations. So, Minister, I hope you will be able to announce a new Sports Capital Programme early in 2026. Minister? Yeah, thanks very much, Deputy Smith. And I know you've been a very strong advocate, as is Deputy Maxwell, for Sports Capital Development and for backing clubs in your constituency. And the intention is, and we're preparing, to be able to reopen for new applications for the Community Sports Facility Fund by the end of spring this year, with the objective of having funding announcements made by the end of next year. So, the most recent round and the pattern in recent years has been generally that there's been around every two years, and we've seen in the 2024 round record funding, which was about €270 million in total, and it saw over 3,000 clubs across the country benefit from that. The round before that would have seen about €160 million. So, it was a significant step change, and if you go back to the round, previous to that, two years before that, it was in double digits, it was around 80 million. That's a reflection of where the Government has gone to back the ambition of clubs and organisations across the country to develop sporting facilities. We're really ramping it up, and we're seeing the benefit of it everywhere now, in terms of improved facilities, and they are needed, because we're seeing improved participation in sport across all age groups, we're seeing massive effort being put in by the clubs and by volunteers, in terms of facilities and people having opportunities, but of course, that puts pressure on facilities, and there's barely a club that you'd visit that isn't under pressure for space and for capacity. So, it's important now that we work to try and continue to support that effort, and that is what we will be doing next year, and we're at the moment completing a review of the outgoing sports capital, our community sports facility fund round, in relation to how it worked, to try and make sure that when we open it up next time around, it's as practicable as possible for clubs to apply and to benefit from it, and the objective is to have that ready to be opened by the end of spring. Deputy Smith. Deputy Smith. Thank you very much. I welcome, Minister, your announcement in relation to the next round. Could I say, Minister, it's a joy to visit any of our sporting clubs on a Saturday morning, see the huge numbers of people participating, and again, as you said, Minister, clubs who have relatively good facilities, and even county boards who have good facilities, are always talking to us about the pressure on their grounds and the need addition of facilities. And Minister, it's very welcome to see the participation of sport now by more and more young girls. And I was at the three county camogie finals in Cavern a few weeks ago, and to see the crowd there and to see the numbers, that each team was able to line out, more than 30 on the panel in each of those cases. And again, I know my own county, and similarly in Monaghan, there's a huge effort made to encourage participation. The sports grounds and county grounds are made available as well to Camogie and ladies football, which wasn't always the way in the past. So Minister, working together, the men's games, the ladies games, football, and also Camogie, it's very important. It helps big time to increase participation, which is very, very good, it's good for everybody. And again, Minister, the last two rounds have been particularly beneficial, a lot of good work has been done, but costs are continuing to rise. And Minister, when assessments are being done, please ensure that costs are taken into account. Thank you, Deputy. Thank you. Cahir League. Yeah, nothing. Thank you, Deputy Smith. And I know this is something you're very, very committed to, and you've been speaking to me about separately as well, and certainly I look forward to visiting yourself and Deputy Maxwell in the constituency in advance of the next round, opening up as well, and making sure that we provide every opportunity for clubs to actually apply and to be funded. It's wonderful to see the impact and the value for money that any investment by the Government here actually results in, because when it comes into a club, you see everyone come together, you see people actually giving voluntarily the time, not just in terms of the work that goes on day in, day out, every weekday and weekend in terms of providing coaching, but also when it comes to developing that club, people coming together to provide, often voluntarily as well, some work as well to make sure that whatever funding is there from the Government and also through fundraising goes as far as it possibly can. Thank you. Deputy Smith, Deputy Smith. Thank you very much. I welcome the Minister's commitment in this regard. Thank you.