Sport Ireland

This week we are tackling the subject of youth participation in sport and the drop-off rates as kids transition from primary school to secondary school.

Research from Sport Ireland shows that while girls and boys have similar sports participation levels at primary school, both around 90%, Almost one-third fewer girls take physical exercise at post-primary level, bringing the rate down to 65% for girls, whilst boys dropped to about only 79%.

To see how this is being dealt with on the ground in Tipperary, I spoke to numerous people around various sports around the county.

Kevin Halley is the Games Development Officer for TIPGA, and in recent years the county has changed the structures of underage competitions, To allow for more games, to allow for greater participation, Kevin describes how they are tackling the drop-off rates within Tip GAA.

Oh, look, it's such an issue, Paul.

It's something probably because I've worked so much in the female game with Cork and then obviously working in the female game here in school.

It's something you see so much of and it's I think I remember looking at a statistic at one stage from Sport Ireland where it was like 30% of females drop off in secondary school compared to boys.

And, you know, it makes you look at that a lot and think about things that could be done.

And only in hindsight did I realise that was such an opportunity.

There was another incident where my publisher actually asked me to double check that what I was saying was correct because they didn't quite believe it, but was the funding for the Irish Sports Council at the time for me to get the maximum amount of funding per year.

As a carded athlete on the kind of national lottery system in Ireland, I was going to need to be top three in the world.

So even being top 10, I wasn't going to qualify, you know, and this was a period where you had photographers to tell Roger and Andy at the very top of the game.

And aside from that, I know there has been this huge growing interest in the UFC in Ireland because of Conor McGregor and Toit.

But again, like yourself, I don't view that as a sport, and there's a reason it's not recognised by the Irish Sports Council directly, and it's just barbaric.

I mean, we've had 29 registered deaths in the UFC in the last 30 years, or 20 years, 25 years, I think, averaging out one a year.

One death a year, like, I don't receive these...

And you have to ask yourself the question is how did that because if i was a member of that committee and i'm looking at an article which says i'm responsible for bullying and harassment the only references to anything specific involve kind of an inference of sexual abuse and that and that's left hanging in the air and the good names of those people are left vulnerable and in that article you have to question where this is coming from because It says that complaints were not investigated by the committee and that the Minister for Sport asked Sports Ireland to intervene in this and contacted the FAI.

And it was when Sport Ireland contacted the FAI that the FAI immediately suspended that committee, so on foot of a threat from the Minister.

And that threat wasn't only against the club, but it was against the whole of the FAI.

He threatened to stop funding to the whole of the fai both at club grassroots level and national level if they didn't intervene in what was really a local issues it sounds like a personality dispute locally to be honest with you

But he further goes on to mention Paul Gavin, who in recent years, as a Sinn Féin senator, was mentioning in the Senate about problems with local football in Limerick.

Now, Mick O'Hearn suggests here that Maurice Quinlivan, it would be more appropriate for Maurice Quinlivan to raise those issues again with the sports minister.

So here's a local journalist in Limerick suggesting to Maurice Quinlivan to raise the issues the complaints or whatever the so-called issues or complaints be the genuine or whatever with the sportsman or minister five or six weeks before the minister for sport makes that phone call to to Sport Ireland and I'm really flabbergasted that in Limerick there has not been one article in the Limerick Post or the Limerick Leader or one piece on the local radio who cover a lot of Limerick football and also on Sunday night every single result from the Limerick District League is read out on their sports programme And this is one of the biggest things to happen in Limerick football since Limerick won the League Cup in 2002 when they beat Derry.

Or when Limerick beat Bohemians to win the FAI Cup in 1982.