Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 January 2021
122. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media her plans for the encouragement of sporting and recreational activity in all primary and second level schools throughout Ireland; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3523/21]
View answerThe organisation and delivery of activities in primary and second-level school settings, including the physical education curriculum, sporting activity generally and inter-school sport competition, are matters for the Department of Education and the schools concerned. I have no statutory role to exercise in that context.
Sport is an important part of the overall Irish sporting landscape and makes a positive contribution to the promotion and achievement of physically active lifestyles by its participants, including school-going children. My Department maintains an ongoing relationship and dialogue with the Department of Education in relation to the pursuit and implementation of respective policy aims. The Department of Education is also represented on the Sports Leadership Group, which I chair.
The achievement of a more physically active school-going population is a shared objective of both educational and sporting policy, to which both my colleague the Minister for Education and I are fully committed. It is my intention to discuss shared policy objectives with the Minister for Education in the near future.
