Do we really need a Department of Sport?
You’re still in the sports section, don’t worry.
Unless you’ve been holidaying under a stone for the last few weeks, however, you’ll be aware of the outrage provoked by the Ceann Comhairle’s expenses regime, which tabloid convention suggests we describe as “lavish” at every opportunity.
Before becoming Ceann Comhairle, however, O’Donoghue was Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, and racked up plenty of expenses while overseeing that portfolio as well (just to prove that all politics is local – and all political scandals are particularly local – The Australian newspaper was trumpeting yesterday that “two big-spending trips to the Melbourne Cup have contributed to the downfall of a senior Irish politician.” Yes, those were critical ...)
Anyway. The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism is clearly a triple threat, as they say in baseball, but we’ll concern ourselves with the middle part of its brief here, motivated by one simple question: do we actually need a Department of Sport?
If you log onto the department website you’ll see that the brief is twofold – “the formulation, development and evaluation of sport policy (the implementation of which in the main is a matter for the Irish Sports Council)” and “overseeing major sports projects, including the National Aquatic Centre at Abbotstown; developing proposals for the provision of a national stadium; the administration of the Sports Capital and the Local Authority Swimming Pool Programmes”.
Taking those responsibilities in reverse order, the National Aquatic Centre had a difficult birth while the idea of a proposed national stadium remains a roguish twinkle in the eye rather than reaching any kind of gestation (less of the ante-natal imagery – ed.)
It might be argued that difficulties with accomplishing individual targets don’t invalidate a mission statement. You could certainly make that argument here. But building and construction is more a speciality of the Office of Public Works, really. Would they have done any worse than the Department of Sport if they’d had those responsibilities?
The first part of the brief – developing, formulating and evaluating sports policy – also looks like something a Department of Sport should be doing. Until you see the other half of that sentence, which assigns responsibility for implementation of such policy to the Irish Sports Council.
If the implementation of policy is another organisation’s responsibility, then you can do all the developing and formulating and evaluating you want: it’s so much pie in the sky unless it’s actually put into operation.
An example? One of the government initiatives most often associated with sport is the scheme introduced back in 2002 whereby professional sportspeople get tax relief on earnings from sport and are able to claim back 40 per cent of tax paid as soon as they’ve retired, and providing they fulfil certain residency criteria.
The only problem for the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism is that the Department of Finance introduced that particular initiative, given that taxation is their bailiwick.
We’ll leave our colleagues at the political desk to pick over the implications of the John O’Donoghue resignation: the fall-out within Leinster House in terms of expenses reform is their baby.
It would be a pity, though, if the cold eye being turned on TDs’ expenses didn’t also examine whether we actually need a Department of Sport in the first place, when various other bodies look capable of taking on its responsibilities.
If it were, you could argue that John O’Donoghue’s jaunt to the Melbourne Cup wasn’t a waste of money after all.
* contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie; Twitter MikeMoynihanEx
