Cullen keen to keep sports budget base

SPORTS Minister Martin Cullen, has vowed the government’s sports budget will not be “one of the first things to be cut” as the country enters an economic slowdown.

The yearly spend on sports jumped from €17m in 1997 to €336m this year, although a sizeable chunk of that latter number incorporates the rebuilding of Lansdowne Road.

But despite talk of recession, the Minister insisted: “I wouldn’t accept that sport is one of the first things to be cut.