Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 July 2004
7 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if he will consult the Department of Education and Science with a view to making the proposed and long-delayed nationwide sports facilities audit include facilities which are operated by or are available to schools, in light of the significant increase in obesity and recognised lack of sports facilities for schools, as revealed in a recent INTO survey. [19754/04]
Amharc ar fhreagra34 Mr. McCormack asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism when the national audit of local sports facilities will commence to ensure a more effective targeting of new facilities at locations at which they are needed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19742/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 34 together.
It is my intention that the proposed national audit of local sports facilities be carried out in conjunction with the development of a sports facilities strategy. As the Deputy will appreciate, completion of a review of the sports capital programme is a necessary precursor to the development of overall strategy in this area. As this review is now in its final stages, I intend to set up an inter-agency steering group to oversee the project.
One of the immediate tasks for this group will be to oversee the commencement of the national audit of local sports facilities. Part of this work will be to decide on the type and location of facilities to be included as part of the scope of such an audit. It will be a matter for this group when established to decide on the scope in light of all the requirements set out.
It is worth noting that the Irish Sports Council's most recent statement of strategy, recognising the need to engage young people in sporting activity, sets out as one of the key objectives the need to increase opportunities to participate in sport at local level, particularly for school-aged children. Last month, I launched the Irish Sports Council's Buntús programme, a national initiative targeting primary schools designed to give children a fun, but high-quality, introduction to sport.
I have no doubt that the facility needs to cater for school-aged children will comprise one of the key issues to be considered in the sports facilities strategy, the development of which will heavily influence the scope and requirements of the national audit of sports facilities.
Question No. 7 makes reference to the significant increase in obesity. Clearly, an approach similar to the inter-agency one is required to tackle this problem. Bearing in mind that yesterday was the deadline for submissions to the Department of Health and Children on this worsening problem, does the Minister agree that if we are to deal with it, we must make children play more sport at school? Is it the case that it is not just a question of facilities but also of attitude in that we must change the attitude to sport so it will not be regarded as a waste of time in schools? Perhaps our approach has focused too much on competition. Those who are good at sports are allowed to participate in them and are provided with the necessary facilities while the rest are simply not encouraged to do so. Is it the Minister's intention to again require the participation of all in sport?
There are more than encouraging signs to the effect that we are treating sport more seriously. The funding available for sport has increased significantly to €110 million from a base of €17 million which obtained when the issue of sport was on the Cabinet table in 1997. There has also been tremendous expenditure under the sports capital programme. There has been expenditure of €370 million on 3,500 different projects since 1998. However, there is still a long way to go. Facilities at national school level, for example, leave a lot to be desired in many cases. The construction of physical education halls is a matter of urgency in many cases, particularly in the context of the new physical education curriculum in national schools.
It is important for us to recognise that resources only stretch so far and that where there is a choice between providing a PE hall and a classroom, the classroom will be chosen. However, my Department has shown a willingness to become involved in joint ventures with the Department of Education and Science to constructing PE halls, for example, whereby the community can utilise the halls when the school is not doing so. We might usefully progress this initiative in the context of the audit of sports facilities in recent years and the strategic plan that we will develop.
We have made progress but, in truth, we still have a long way to go to deal with the issue of obesity, take children away from their Playstations and put them on the playing fields.
While I agree with the Minister that funding for sport has been increased, I do not believe it has been directed at physical education at both primary and secondary levels. In 1991, I carried out a national survey of all primary and post-primary schools in the country. I discovered that 75% of primary schools in Kerry, for example, had no PE hall. A recent survey by the INTO confirmed that 70% of schools did not have PE facilities, so matters have not improved in the last 13 years. Most of the PE halls in schools in Kerry have been converted into classrooms and schools do not have the facilities to put the new PE curriculum in place. In addition, teachers do not feel confident to take on the new curriculum. Inservice courses of two or three days will not provide this confidence. We have a major problem in our primary and post-primary schools.
We are sitting on a medical timebomb. Some years ago, when I forecast that we would have a major obesity problem I was accused of exaggeration. It is now obvious that we have such a problem. Young people are now less fit and less active than they were ten years ago.
There will have to be a major refocus on how national lottery money is spent. A community which is prepared to provide a sports facility on school grounds, whether primary or secondary, should be given preference. Such a facility could be used by the school during the day and by the community during the evening. Time constraints and weather make it impractical for a teacher to walk children to a sports facility half a mile or a mile away from a school. In future, when money is being provided for sports facilities, preference should be given to communities, clubs and organisations which are prepared to build facilities on or adjacent to school grounds. That would be a good start but it is not happening.
Since 1998, more than 3,500 projects in every city, village and parish in the country have seen development and almost €270 million has been spent.
It was mostly spent on competitive sport.
If one adds the amount allocated under the swimming pool programme the total comes to €350 million since 1997. It is not an insignificant sum. In fact, it is the first serious expenditure on sports facilities in the country. I accept that we have a long way to go. I am under no illusion about the fact that facilities in schools are, for the most part, inadequate. This is particularly the case in primary schools. However, we are trying to build up the base and we have made a considerable amount of progress in a very short space of time.
The facilities I have mentioned are, for the most part, utilised by schools and the volunteers in the clubs and organisations concerned encourage participation by schools. We always look benevolently on applications which would result in schools and the community benefiting from sports facilities. Resources are finite. Under the sports capital programme, the amount available in any given year rarely exceeds €22 million. That is a vast increase on what was available, even seven or eight years ago when very little was available.
I would welcome this audit and the sooner it is done, the better. I acknowledge that considerable funds have been provided through the national lottery for sports facilities and that this matter is not entirely the problem of the Department. Nevertheless, lottery funds have been spent in areas which have major social problems but no link appears to have been made between providing sports facilities and helping those communities. It is imperative that an audit be done as soon as possible.
I do not know the solution to this problem. I am familiar with the application forms for lottery funding and I know they take account of various aspects of social inclusion and so on. Nevertheless, communities which experience social exclusion are often not involved in the provision of lottery funded sports facilities. The proposed audit will show up these black spots.
Deputy Wall is right. There are, unquestionably, blackspots throughout the country and in disadvantaged areas. In that respect, we have tried to prioritise such areas through the RAPID and CLÁR programmes. We have seen considerable developments in recent times, not least in the Acting Chairman's own constituency, in areas which might be described as vulnerable or disadvantaged. Participation rates in the areas concerned where we have seen these developments have been quite high. The Government is committed to continuing to invest in areas of disadvantage in order to build up the necessary facilities, because there are gaps.
We have only begun to take sport seriously. We did not have a Cabinet Minister for sport until 1997, we had no statutory Sports Council until a few years ago and we had no proper sports capital programme until 1998. In 1997, our budget for sport was €17 million while today it is €110 million. We had no budget for a sports council but the Sports Council's budget is now €30 million. We had no programme for elite athletes and we now have a carding system. We had no measurements for high performance athletes and we now have. Sam Lynch, the oarsman, has said that while a few years ago his biggest worry was how he would pay his hotel bill, he can now worry about rowing. Our sports men and women now know that the Government and people are behind them.
It is true that there are huge gaps and that we have a long way to go. If we all recognise that, Government and Opposition can work together to build up facilities with a view to ensuring greater participation, that more women become involved in sport, that more young people come away from the Playstations and onto the playing fields and that we have a healthy sporting society. Sport is endemic in Ireland. We are all interested in it but we did not invest sufficiently in sport for the simple reason that we did not have the resources to do so. Now we have more resources and we will treat it more seriously. That is true of every party in the House.
