On the Adjournment: A recess opportunity for TDs to air their view. This week, Paul Gogarty argues that targeted investment is needed at primary school level to increase participation in sport and maximise our chances of long-term Olympic success.
The end of the long Dáil adjournment is finally in sight. As the sun heads towards the equinox, the Oireachtas, that spluttering engine of democracy, slowly begins to crank up. The committees are meeting again and in a few short weeks the Dáil will resume its business.
This annual return to legislative duties always reminds me of my school days. Not just because of the month that's in it, but also because of the sense of freshness and anticipation. One of my most enduring memories from school is participating in the annual Coláiste Phádraig Sponsored Cycle. This was supposed to be a leisurely event but it always turned into a 20-mile sprint. The money raised was to build a sports hall. It was eventually built - some 20 years later.
This story isn't unique. Schools across the country are forced to fund-raise for all kinds of facilities. Primary schools in particular suffer from a deficit of sports equipment and are lucky to have even the most basic physical education hall. So it's really no surprise that obesity levels are rising and teachers view the new PE curriculum as something of a joke. And certainly no wonder that we go on to under-perform on the world stage, as witnessed by our poor medal haul in successive Olympic Games.
In terms of Olympic achievement, Ireland continues to lag behind developed countries of a similar population as well as developing countries with fewer resources. Why? It is not the fault of the athletes who went to Athens, did their best on the day and still did Ireland proud. It is the lack of joined-up thinking between Government Departments. Our rare successes have been in spite of a strategy rather than because of a strategy.
This year we had the usual post-Olympic clap-trap from the Taoiseach and John O'Donoghue, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, about the Government's commitment to developing sport. Yet at the same time, our schools are suffering from serious under-investment in PE facilities. It has got to the ridiculous stage where, for the second year running, Noel Dempsey, Minister for Education, has withdrawn the paltry grant of €600-€1,200 for sports equipment in schools, citing budgetary reasons.
The Taoiseach has now promised additional funding for sport. This is welcome, but the bulk of any investment should be directed where it will have the greatest effect - into our schools.
Survey after survey has shown that if you get children involved in sport, they are much more likely to continue to lead active lives into adulthood. Sport and active recreation has health benefits, social benefits and creativity benefits. It's the taking part that counts, but greater participation also increases the base from which top-level sports performers can develop. A win-win situation.
The Department of Education should immediately reintroduce the abolished sports equipment grant and preferably increase it. Funding should be targeted at school building projects, including money for PE halls and sports fields. Community linkages between sports clubs and schools should be enhanced and formalised, with provision made for sharing and clustering of facilities.
There is also scope to introduce new models of sports development. One proposal I have suggested is the development of a system of integrated public partnership (IPP) between the Department of Education, local authorities and community organisations, including sports clubs. This would facilitate the construction of modular, multi-use facilities, which would have longer opening hours and would be more cost effective to build and maintain than traditional school buildings. It would enable facilities, which would not be economic on an individual basis, to be provided for an array of users.
Existing schools in both rural and urban areas could also benefit in terms of how extensions and new sports facilities operate. Smaller schools facing closure due to decreasing populations would be more viable if the building was part of a wider unit, involving the integration of sports and community activities, again as part of an IPP. While there are obvious issues that need to be addressed in terms of security and management, the Minister for Education could sanction a number of pilot projects, similar to what took place with the Public Private Partnership model.
Even without the IPP approach, there is plenty of scope to develop the existing facilities within primary and second level schools as well as to maximise usage of private and public sports facilities in a given locality. But to carry it out effectively, we need a nationwide audit of sports facilities. This was promised in the Programme for Government, but two years later we are still waiting.
Such an audit needs to be allied with a base line analysis of participation levels in sport among all school goers and a sample adult survey, so that we can find out who is taking part among the different socio-economic and demographic groups. Were such an audit to be carried out, it would provide hugely beneficial data and allow for precision investment where it is most needed.
The message to this Government is to start from the bottom up. Of course we need to look at other areas: longer-term funding so that carded athletes can develop their abilities with reasonable financial security; identification of top performers at an earlier age; the countrywide roll-out of Local Sports Partnerships. The key approach, however, must be to develop sport through the school system.
One of the priority areas identified by the Irish Sports Council in its High Performance Strategy is "the need to establish clear pathways to the top", identifying and supporting structures that enable young people to become involved in sport and progress to higher levels of performance. Where such pathways exist at present, they are more akin to dirt tracks. This is wholly the fault of Government policy. Whoever is in charge of education and sport after the reshuffle urgently needs to start getting the basics right.
• Paul Gogarty is Green Party TD for Dublin Mid-West and spokesman for education and science, and arts, sport and tourism