Politics

Funding for Irish athletes and facilities before next Olympic Games to top €500m

Running track and national velodrome and badminton centre among plans, but swimming pools ‘shockingly expensive’ says Minister

The Ireland women's 4x400m team who finished fourth in the Olympic final in Paris on Saturday: Sophie Becker, Sharlene Mawdsley, Phil Healy and Rhasidat Adeleke. A new running track is to be built in Bandon, Healy's hometown. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
The Ireland women's 4x400m team who finished fourth in the Olympic final in Paris on Saturday: Sophie Becker, Sharlene Mawdsley, Phil Healy and Rhasidat Adeleke. A new running track is to be built in Bandon, Healy's hometown. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho
Harry McGee
Mon Aug 12 2024 - 00:00

Funding for Irish athletes and facilities in advance of the next Olympic Games will top €500 million following the great success of Team Ireland in Paris, the Minister responsible for sports policy has said.

Thomas Byrne, Minister of State for Sport said that spending to support high-performance athletes and teams could reach €120 million cumulatively over the next four years, with a further €400 million being allotted in funding for new stadiums and world-standard facilities.

The State has supported Irish Olympic athletes to unprecedented levels in recent years, said Mr Byrne, but would continue to increase funding for the Los Angeles games in 2028, and for sports generally.

Referring specifically to Sport Ireland’s high-performance programme, he said he wanted to increase its funding from €25 million a year to as much as €30 million a year over the next four years.

READ MORE

“Funding for high performance alone has gone up by 50 per cent as compared to the last Olympic cycle, increasing from €59 million to €89 million. We are going to increase it more for the Los Angeles cycle,” he said.

“We’re also going to be announcing a new programme of spending under the sports capital programme in September. In 2019 the sports capital programme was worth about €59 million. In 2022 it was €166 million. This new sports capital programme will be at least €250 million when we announce it in September.”

“In addition, we have a separate fund of €120 million for large-scale sports infrastructure, which would be mainly stadiums and regional sports centres.”

Mr Byrne said that there has been a step-change in recent years, with sporting organisations now having access to significant funding for development and improving standards.

“We have authorised Sports Ireland to go to tender on the new national velodrome [for track cycling], which will also have a national badminton centre [with 12 courts].

The velodrome and badminton centre, which will be located at Sport Ireland Campus in Dublin, could cost upwards of €60 million. The campus will also be the location for new cricket facilities ahead of the Cricket World Cup in 2030 that Ireland is co-hosting.

“We are providing really significant amounts of facilities to sports clubs and organisation up and down the country. For example, there is a state-of-the-art running track being constructed in Bandon, the home of [athlete] Phil Healy.”

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said on Sunday that the Government would in 2024 alone be announcing €400 million in capital investments for sports. He said the turnaround in the fortunes of the Irish Olympic team was the result of good governance by Sport Ireland and the Olympic Federation of Ireland in recent years.

“When you get good governance, you get incremental increases in investment, there’s better confidence all round, proper processes. That is far more important in my view, because good governance will attract more funding and the funding gets targeted in the proper way.”

Mr Byrne, however, said that there were still obvious gaps. He said there was a need for more first-class swimming pools but the costs being quoted for some were “shockingly expensive”. He said that he hoped that some of those projects would come through as part of the large-scale sports infrastructure funds.

He said that there was also a focus on looking at improving soccer facilities, including those in the League of Ireland.

The 133 athletes who competed for Ireland in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games will be welcomed home on Monday, with a public homecoming in front of the GPO, O’Connell Street, Dublin beginning at 12.30pm. The 64 women and 69 men competed across 14 sports, winning a total of seven medals, posting personal and seasonal bests in many cases as well as progressing in their individual competitions.

Harry McGee

Harry McGee

Harry McGee is a Political Correspondent with The Irish Times