Extreme disappointment as sport suffers another loss
As feared, the latest budget delivered disastrous news for the sector, with roughly 8%, or €3m, wiped off the already paltry pot leaving 100 or so sporting bodies to squabble over €40m or so next year.
Predictably, the Department of Sport attempted to dress up the figures by pointing to a new round of investment for sports capital projects and the development of a national indoor arena at the National Sports Campus.
The reality is, however, that this latest chunk taken from the current funding budget will result in further job losses in a sector which has already had to shed employees despite the fact that it has the potential to contribute far more to the economy if given the chance.
The Federation of Irish Sport (FIS) reacted to the figures by expressing itself “extremely disappointed” and stating its determination to seek a meeting with Sports Minister Leo Varadkar. However, the message propagating sport’s wider benefits has not fully registered with politicians.
As the FIS pointed out yesterday, this is the sixth year in a row in which sport has been scalped, a third has now been excised from the 2008 high of almost €60m and what is left amounts to now to just €8.73 per citizen.
It appears also as though the pre-budget submission calling for an extra €4.5m which would create instantly 150 jobs fell on deaf ears despite the Government’s insistence that job creation is the best means of emerging from troubled economic times.
“Cuts to sports funding are at odds with wider government policies and counter intuitive as sporting events have proven to be key drivers in boosting tourism figures during ‘The Gathering’,” said the FIS statement.
“The cuts come at a time of increasing market volatility affecting the funding models of many of our leading sporting organisations further jeopardising the future of sports development in Ireland.”
