Ireland will bid to host Women's Champions League final

Ireland star Katie McCabe with the Champions League trophy after Arsenal's triumph last year. File picture: David Ramos/Getty

Ireland could bid to host the Uefa Women's Champions League final in 2029.

Sports minister Patrick O'Donovan will ask the Government, at Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, to support the FAI potentially bidding to host the Women’s Champions League final in Dublin in 2029 ahead of the deadline for bids on June 10.

Ireland is one of four countries to have expressed an interest in hosting the final, alongside Wales, France, and Switzerland. 

The Government feels that Ireland has a strong track record of hosting European finals at the Aviva Stadium with two Europa League finals taking place in the venue over the last 15 years. 

With the increased popularity of women's and girls’ football in Ireland, the FAI views the Irish bid as standing a good chance of being successful.

Mr O'Donovan will also tell Cabinet that there is a need for a nationwide text alert system. 

He will seek approval for the procurement by the Department of Culture, Communications, and Sport of the systems and services necessary to establish a cell broadcast public warning system capable of sending emergency warnings to mobile phones.

The Office of Emergency Planning will assume responsibility for management of the alert system once it is fully operational.

It is anticipated that the phone alert system, which will be used to notify the public of extreme weather events, such as storms, could be up and running next year.

Also at Cabinet, children's minister Norma Foley is bringing a memo which will make it mandatory for employers to use a new gender pay reporting portal. 

Every organisation in Ireland with over 50 employees is legally obliged to report their gender gap pay. 

They can do this by publishing the reports on their individual websites.

Amendments to the Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 will make it mandatory for these employers to report to the State’s new gender pay portal from November 1. 

The portal is already in operation for employers to use voluntarily but Ms Foley hopes mandatory use of the portal will draw attention to "the importance of gender pay gap reporting", and will be fully searchable by members of the public.

Ms Foley is also set to announce details of the maximum fee cap for early learning and childcare services.

This will lower the maximum fees that can be charged by new and existing early years services in receipt of Core Funding from the State. 

It will be focused on services charging the highest fees to parents and will come into effect in September. 

Last year, Ms Foley announced that the highest possible fees will be no more than €295 per week for a full day care place that would come in at 40-50 hours a week.

Meanwhile, social protection minister Dara Calleary will look to extend a summer holiday school meals pilot for another year. 

The Holiday Hunger Pilot Project was announced in Budget 2025 and implemented last summer. 

It helped more than 42,000 children at most risk of educational disadvantage with so-called holiday hunger.

Over 500 schools took part in the pilot project in 2025. Over 90% of the schools indicated that providing school meals positively impacted the children who took part.