Vol. 563 No. 5
103 Ms McManus asked the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs when the comprehensive survey of the availability of recreational facilities in disadvantaged areas, which was promised in An Agreed Programme for Government, will begin; the person by whom the survey will be undertaken; when it is expected to be completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8319/03]
With regard to the commitment in the programme for Government, officials of my Department have held discussions with the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism on how best to carry out the survey of the availability of recreational facilities in disadvantaged areas. In this context, the Deputy should note that the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism has commenced work on drawing up a long-term strategic plan for the provision of sports facilities throughout the country. As part of this process, a national audit of local sports facilities will be carried out.
An inter-agency steering group will be established towards the middle of this year to oversee the national audit of facilities. This group will be chaired by the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and will include representatives from my Department as well as the Departments of Education and Science and the Environment and Local Government, the Irish Sports Council and some local authorities. I understand from the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism that carrying out an effective and comprehensive national audit of local facilities is a major and complex undertaking which is likely to take a substantial amount of time and resources to complete.
I thank the Minister of State for that reply. We are aware of the local sports partnership programme which is being put in place by the Irish Sports Council and obviously we welcome it, but is there not a strong case for the interagency group, about which the Minister of State spoke, to give priority to disadvantaged areas in carrying out this audit? As he rightly points out, the overall exercise is complex and extensive, but surely his Department should focus on measuring the facilities available in disadvantaged areas as a basis for planning the making up of deficits so that young people in these areas are given a chance to develop and make up for what is lost because of the various deficits around them.
It is already Government policy to target disadvantaged areas. The young people's facilities and services fund was formed a couple of years ago. That fund particularly targets disadvantaged areas and provides facilities and capital projects.
There is no doubt that disadvantaged areas have been lacking in facilities, mainly because there was not an ability to raise the local contribution. That has been greatly helped by the young people's facilities and services fund. If there were a proper national audit, however, it would still show that disadvantaged areas do not get their fair share of such facilities.
The priority is to undertake that national audit and then to have a long-term strategy which would involve analysing, getting into the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism national capital programme and perhaps laying down specific criteria which commit much of that to disadvantaged areas. That is what I would like to see.
Much has been done under the young people's facilities and services fund, but there is a need to get the indicators and proof that those areas need more. Returning to the previous questions, it is all well and good asking people to be good citizens but one needs to be able to divert young people into other useful projects in such areas as sport and the arts.
I find it difficult to understand why there would be such an administrative difficulty in finding out the recreational facilities which exist in any part of the country. If the Minister of State gave me two weeks, I would be able to list all the recreational facilities in Cork city. There is such a dearth of recreational facilities that it should not be a major job of work. Local authorities are required to do far more complicated tasks, for instance, in levying a waste charge on every household, and databases can be compiled quite easily.
The Minister of State's answer was not satisfac tory. If there is a logjam at local authority level or even at VEC level, the information out there must be compiled quite easily. That is a matter of political will and does not have to do with any administrative logjam. I would like to see the Minister of State tackle this need for information with a little more enthusiasm.
My Department will be part of this group but we are not the lead Department. The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism is the lead agency.
While individual local authorities or Deputies could do it, in trying to conduct a national audit it is necessary that there be agreement on such parameters as shape and size. There is a commitment in the programme for Government that this will be done. It has not got off the ground. To date, the work is at the consultation stage, but it will happen in the coming months. When they get going perhaps the Deputy will be proved right, that it is not as daunting a task as the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism thinks. There needs to be certain parameters and criteria laid down and that will be part of the work, but we will be part of the group and we will try to push it.
Written Answers follow Adjournment Debate.
