Taoiseach Micheál Martin has criticised local authorities in Dublin for a lack of “engagement” in the provision of sporting facilities and said other councils are much better at this.
Mr Martin was commenting after Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon highlighted the lack of facilities in Dublin’s north inner-city in the wake of the success of the Republic of Ireland soccer team last week and its striker Troy Parrott, who is from the area.
Mr Gannon said he “captured the nation’s heart, scoring two against Portugal and three against Hungary” in World Cup qualifier matches.
The Dublin Central TD pointed to the lack of facilities in the north inner-city despite the number of high-class athletes from the area and that children have to travel to other areas to play sports.
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“There are no football pitches, astro turfs, in the north-inner city. When it was Kelly Harrington, there were no boxing facilities that were well-funded by the State.”
He acknowledged that the north inner-city taskforce, which is overseen by the Taoiseach’s office, is well-funded.
“But we still have the same lack of facilities. We have these sporting heroes who have to travel outside their own communities.
“There are very few places in the country where people have to travel outside their own communities when they’re starting off in a sport” where they achieve such acclaim, he said as he called on the Taoiseach to take action.
Mr Martin said the Government salutes “the extraordinary performances of Troy Parrott, Kelly Harrington, indeed many athletes. A person on radio the other day listed all the internationals in one street alone.”
But he acknowledged “there is an issue in Dublin and I think the local authorities need to be engaged in terms of the provision of sporting facilities. Around the country other local authorities do it better.”
However, he stressed that the sports capital grant “has funded lots of facilities”.
On boxing he said “there’s no want of political will to support boxing and boxing clubs”.
He had asked successive ministers for sport and one of the issues in boxing is “administrative capacity to get the applications in and get it done” and “a bit of work” is needed on that.
There were “very high-level elite sporting supports and grants” for those who get on to the Irish team, Mr Martin said.
“We’re trying to improve them for those who graduate to development teams or development squads.”
They are developing a league academy where €3 million was provided “to home grow a competitive League of Ireland and to have a pipeline of young talent that can develop in Ireland,” he said.
