Tony McCormack
Question:191. Deputy Tony McCormack asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the steps being taken to improve access to sports facilities for women and girls. [4143/26]
View answerTuesday, 20 January 2026
Questions (191)
Written answers
Equality, diversity and inclusion are key areas for focus for me in my role as Minister of State for Sport.
The Programme for Government commits to supporting the sporting ecosystem so more people can participate, reap the benefits of sport, and fulfil their potential from grassroots right up to high performance level. This will be achieved through a range of measures including continuing to support the funding of sports capital projects and assessing the distribution of funding to maximise participation in all sports at community and national level, as well as continuing to work with sporting organisations to promote equality of access to sporting facilities and to drive increased participation in sport.
Female participation in sport is an important element of both the National Sports Policy 2018-2027 and the recently published Sports Action Plan 2024 - 2027 and is a core priority for my Department. Last year Sport Ireland announced an investment of €4 million under the Women in Sport programme for 2025. This is critical funding and my Department will continue to support programmes to increase women’s participation in all sports to eliminate the gender participation gap by 2027 as outlined in the National Sports Policy.
Furthermore, clubs and organisations applying to the Community Sport Facilities Fund (CSFF) must be open to new members and must not have any restrictions on who may join or obtain full membership. All CSFF applicants must agree that, from the date of the grant, they will not deny anybody access to any facility. In addition, the Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) requires that recipients of LSSIF funding must accommodate the needs of women and men, on a similar basis, with respect to accessing the facilities.