Eoin Sheahan

So that's a total of €292,000 out of €34 million spent in Dublin.

Those are the two areas that need this funding more than any other.

And yet they seem the areas most unlikely to receive that funding.

Something's not right there that this is the outcome when it comes to these sports capital grants.

And that's been something that Sporting Liberties have really been engaged with for the guts of 10 years, if not longer.

And what I found really interesting, I'd actually kind of lost the sort of the story there for a little while because we hadn't covered it in a couple of years.

I was just reading last year that there was this philanthropic collective that raised a million euro to deliver the first public green space in Dublin A. So that's 8,500 children in this area.

That to me spells out a real failure on behalf of the local government, on the national government to actually deliver on sporting facilities for children if they have to rely on a

philanthropic collective to deliver them a million quid.

It feels that there's a multitude of factors at play here as well in terms of actually getting stuff over the line.

Funding is one step, but there's a whole other swathe of other issues.

Like when it comes to planning, for example, is there anything that sports facilities or the sports world of Ireland can do to grease the wheels when it comes to planning?

Because sporting infrastructure, you know better than anybody how important that is on a social level for this country, particularly in built up areas.

Built up areas face greater planning issues than most other areas of the country.

So those two things can't really coexist either.

Because how do you address the issues that we're discussing today while also realising that the number one subject on the government's agenda right now is the ongoing housing crisis?

So it can't just be a sort of black and white look at more houses equals a better society.

What's coming with the housing?

How do we then bridge the gap between that?

pitifully low amount of money and what could be possible in deprived areas.