Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross
and Minister of State for Tourism and Sport , Patrick O’Donovan
Presentation to Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport
1 February 2017
_________________________________________________________
I would like to thank the members for their invitation to appear before the
Committee this afternoon and for this opportunity to have a productive
discussion on Sport issues.
Before I address the issues outlined by the Committee, I would like to take the
opportunity to congratulate all of our sportsmen and women who performed
to great success at home and abroad in 2016.
The accomplishments of our athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games
last summer must be commended. As well as the two Olympic silver medals
won by Annalise Murphy and Paul and Gary O’Donovan, Irish Olympians
achieved 16 Top 10 finishes and 14 Top 20 finishes. And our Paralympians
achieved 11 medals and 22 Top 8 finishes.
Overall, 2016 was an excellent year for our elite Irish athletes, with 54 medals
achieved at World and European levels in sports supported by Sport Ireland.
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I will now address the issues outlined by the Committee and will be pleased to
have a broader discussion on these and other sport issues.
Governance Issues
It is vital that the highest standards of governance are in place across all levels
of Irish sport to ensure accountability, fairness and transparency across
organisational activities and to support the integrity of sport both at home and
abroad.
The Committee will be aware that Sport Ireland is the statutory body with
responsibility for governance of National Governing Bodies of Sport. Sport
Ireland has an important role in governance issues and in ensuring that that
taxpayers’ money is used to best effect. Sport Ireland has strong procedures in
place for dealing with governance and financial oversight of the National
Governing Bodies funded by it.
In an effort to strengthen good governance practices, we have engaged with
Sport Ireland to introduce a mandatory requirement for all National Governing
Bodies in receipt of Government funding through Sport Ireland to adopt the
Governance Code for Community, Voluntary and Charitable Organisations.
It will now be mandatory for all National Governing Bodies funded by Sport
Ireland to begin the process of adopting the Code during 2017. The timeframe
for progress on a comply-or-explain basis for the larger sporting organisations
will be 2019, with 2020 being the timeline for the smaller organisations.
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Leadership for women in sport
Ensuring gender equality in the governance of sport in Ireland is an important
objective.
In that regard, a consultation has commenced with National Governing Bodies
of Sport on how best to ensure women’s involvement in leadership roles in
sport, including the option to require National Governing Bodies to meet a
gender balance target.
A very successful meeting took place with representatives from close to 50
sporting organisations on 16 December. The purpose of that meeting was to
discuss approaches to advancing the participation of women in positions of
leadership in sport.
This matter is still in discussion stage and a period of consultation is just
concluding. Sport Ireland invited views from the Governing Bodies, with a
deadline of last Friday for submissions. We expect to receive a report from
Sport Ireland shortly outlining the findings from that consultation.
We will then consider the inputs and observations received during this
consultation before any decisions are made on how to proceed.
Funding and the Sports Capital Programme
The total amount available for spending on sport this year is just over €112
million. This includes €6 million in unspent capital which has been carried over
from 2016.
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On the current side, the budget for Sport Ireland is €49.8 million, an increase of
€2.5m on the 2016 allocation. This funding will allow Sport Ireland to continue
to support participation and high performance programmes in 2017.
In addition, Dormant Accounts funding of €5 million has been allocated to my
Department to support measures for sport in disadvantaged areas.
Sport Ireland’s capital funding allocation is for the development of the National
Sports Campus. The allocation of €2.9m for 2017 is to meet existing
commitments. Members will be aware that the Taoiseach officially opened the
National Indoor Arena at the National Sports Campus last week. The National
Indoor Arena is a very significant and welcome addition to the existing facilities
at the Campus, providing world-class indoor facilities for Athletics, Gymnastics
and a variety of other sports.
The Sports Capital Programme (SCP) is the Government's primary vehicle to
support the development of sports facilities and the purchase of sports
equipment.
It aims to foster an integrated and planned approach to
developing sports and physical recreation facilities throughout the country. In
particular, its stated objectives are to:
 Assist voluntary and community organisations, national governing
bodies (NGBs) of sport, local authorities and schools to develop high
quality, safe, well-designed, sustainable facilities in appropriate locations
and to provide appropriate equipment to help maximise participation in
sport and physical recreation;
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 Prioritise the needs of disadvantaged areas in the provision of sports
facilities; and
 Encourage the sharing of local, regional and national sports facilities by
clubs, community organisations and national governing bodies of sport.
On 21 December last, we announced that €30 m is being made available under
the 2017 Sports Capital Programme. The application process opened on the
23rd January and will remain open until 24th February.
A previous criticism of the scheme was the number of invalid applications
received. In this regard a significant effort has been made to simplify and
streamline the application process. The form itself has been reduced from 14
pages
to
6
pages.
Other
supports
for
applicants
include
a
comprehensive written and video guide both of which are available on my
Department’s website. For the first time we have also arranged a series of
regional workshops to provide guidance to potential applicants on how to
complete the form. These workshops commence next week and I understand
that there is a huge level of interest in attending.
Based on previous rounds of the programme, the assessment process takes a
number of months to complete so I expect that actual grant allocations will be
made some time towards the end of the Summer.
The programme has transformed the sporting landscape of Ireland with
improvements in the quality and quantity of sporting facilities in virtually every
village, town and city in the country. We are committed to ensuring this
progress continues. In this regard we will be engaging with the Minister for
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Public Expenditure and Reform as part of the Mid –Term Review of the Capital
Plan to ensure that the Sports Capital Programme is opened for applications on
an annual basis in the future.
Challenges and Strategies
In terms of the challenges that we have to face, and the possible strategies
that we might usefully deploy to successfully overcome them, the Committee
will be aware that last November my Department launched a major
consultation process for the development of a new National Sports Policy
Framework.
By the mid-January deadline for submission of comments, almost 50 responses
had been received. I am very happy with this response level. We are now in the
process of examining these submissions and I would be confident that the new
policy will benefit greatly from the insights from the various sports
stakeholders. Even though the deadline has passed, we won’t turn away
anybody else that might wish to make a submission even at this late stage and
I am pleased to have the opportunity of extending that invitation publicly
today.
There are several key challenges which we will have to address and I will briefly
run through a few of those in a moment. But there is one challenge that I
would consider should be to the forefront in our thinking, and that concerns
how to increase the numbers participating in sport and physical activity
generally. There are worrying trends that point clearly to declining numbers
overall. In the most recent Irish Sports Monitor Report, it was found that 45%
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of the population participate regularly in sport, which represents a small
decline in participation levels in both genders.
Clearly, a continuation of a situation whereby more than half the population is
not participating in sport on a regular basis would have significant
consequences for Irish society as a whole in the future, in terms of adverse
impacts on the health of the nation. Although other lifestyle choices such as
improving diet are important factors that can contribute to a solution,
increasing participation rates in sport and physical activity is certainly part of
that solution and we will be giving that challenge a particular priority in the
period ahead. Sport policy overlaps with other Government departments and
agencies through initiatives such as Healthy Ireland, education, social policy
and issues such as regional planning. Cross-sectoral engagement and a more
joined up approach by Government working closely with key stakeholders will
be one of our priorities for the new sports policy.
Everyone, regardless of age or ability, should be able to participate in sport.
We will aim therefore to ensure that sports policy should support everyone
from early childhood play through education and adult life. For this to happen
there needs to be sustained investment in sport. We will need therefore to
define the parameters of such an investment programme over the long-term,
bearing in mind the importance of current investment in people as well as
capital facilities.
There is also the challenge of competing and succeeding on the international
stage. There is an undoubted inspirational effect amongst young people in
particular of seeing their sporting heroes being successful at the major
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international sporting events and we will have to consider how best to drive
forward. While we have come a long way in recent times in terms of the worldclass facilities at the National Sports Campus, there will be a need for
continued commitment to our High Performance sector.
The work of the National Governing Bodies and Local Sports Partnerships also
warrants particular consideration. They each play an absolutely vital role in the
Irish sports landscape. Ensuring good governance throughout all organisations
involved in sport, in order to maintain public confidence in sporting bodies, is
accordingly a key policy objective.
I have mentioned just a few of our challenges today and we will be working
hard over the next few months to set a clear strategic direction for
engagement by Government and Sport Ireland with the sporting sector. I hope
to finalise the new Sports Policy Framework around the middle of this year.
For now, we are looking forward to hearing the views and priorities of this
Committee, which will help form part of my overall considerations.
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