Every year since 1997 the publication of the sports capital programme has been extremely disappointing. For the first few years, sports clubs in Dublin and other urban regions received next to nothing as the Minister, Deputy McDaid, thought about new programmes and application forms.
In the last two years many clubs in disadvantaged urban areas have once again been let down and are bitterly disappointed. A key element of the programme this year was that even if one's club was in a disadvantaged area, it had to have a minimum of 20% of the funding for the project. That meant, for example, a club seeking a development costing £200,000 had to have £40,000. However, if it had that amount of money, it probably would not have needed to apply for a lottery grant in the first place. It seems to me this element must be thought out again seriously by the Minister. Because of the 200 or so applications in the four Dublin council areas, about 80 were immediately marked ineligible – about 40% of the applications. It was a disgrace.
This is just part of a wider pattern of discrimination against the metropolitan regions. Dublin, for example, received only £7 million net – not £9.5 million, as the Minister stated – out of the £40 million for sport nationally. As we now know, none of the eight sports partnerships was allocated to Dublin Corporation, which deals with the most deprived areas.
The situation in the Dublin North-East constituency is even worse. Despite the fact that it forms part of the disadvantaged North-side Partnership Area and recently got three areas in the RAPID Programme, we received a miserly total of £250,000 in funding out of the £40 million available.
While I welcome the fact that Naomh Barróg, a fine GAA club in Kilbarrack, got £15,000 and the Dean Swift Sports Club in Clonshaugh got £100,000, the total amount we received seems derisory when compared with what other similar sized counties received. Counties Clare, Sligo and Louth, for example, received £708,000, £905,000 and £885,000, respectively, that is, almost £1 million each, and rightly so. They were probably entitled to £2 million but then so was Dublin North-East. Even counties such as Carlow, Roscommon and Laois, which have about half the population of my constituency, received £820,000, £850,000 and £943,000, respectively. I do not begrudge them those grants, but why did Dublin North-East get a derisory £250,000?
If one looks through examples of the applications, there is one terrible disappointment for the people of Baldoyle. The magnificent Baldoyle United Football Club, which has been in existence for almost half a century, the famous green and white hoops of which are famous in all soccer leagues, is the only major sports club in the parish of Baldoyle which holds perhaps 12,000 or 13,000 people. Year in, year out, it looks after 600 young men and women. It liaises closely with, and provides a home for, our local senior citizens, who hope to visit me in this House next Wednesday. It also liaises closely with local schools. For the third year in a row, Baldoyle United has gone to the door of the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Deputy McDaid, and has had it slammed in its face. This is outrageous.
Dublin North-East is represented by three of the Minister's colleagues: a senior Fianna Fáil Minister, a Fianna Fáil Deputy and a Fianna Fáil Senator. Therefore, there are three Fianna Fáil representatives in the four-seat constituency. What is the use in having them at the end of the day if we get a miserable £250,000 pounds out of £40 million, when according to any fair allocation, we were entitled to at least £1 million? The Minister, Deputy McDaid, has failed us once again. He is an affable man, with whom I get on well, but he has let us down in the allocation of sports grants for the most vulnerable constituencies.
Only a few weeks ago we watched him make the case on "The Late, Late Show" for the spending of £550 million, £600 million or, as many of my party colleagues believe, up to £1 billion to build the centre of sports excellence, Sports Campus Ireland, but eight miles along the M50, the children of Baldoyle United and many similar soccer clubs, boxing clubs and Gaelic football clubs will still have to tog out in ditches.
I ask the Minister, as we enter the last nine or ten months of the Government's term of office, to look at providing a fair allocation of sports capital moneys throughout the country, particularly in my neck of the woods in Dublin North-East and in all the metropolitan areas which seem to do badly in comparison to other areas. On many occasions I have argued with the Minister, Deputy McDaid, that in any one year he could give each of the 42 constituencies perhaps £1.5 million or £2 million. A £40 million programme is useless. There should have been at least £60 million or perhaps £80 million. It would be preferable to provide a programme of that size for Dublin and the rest of the country rather than see the Government spend £1 billion on an illusion in memory of one man.
