Sports Council chairman Donald Shearer calls for greater government priority for sport and recreation as its second annual report is published

“THE shoe continues to pinch and I have the feeling that it pinches a good deal harder than on some others. It will remain so until the government acknowledges that sport and recreation deserve a higher place in its order of priorities.”

These were the comments of Donald Shearer, chairman of the Northern Ireland Sports Council, at a Belfast press conference yesterday when the Sports Council’s second annual report was published.

Continuing, Mr Shearer said that when he introduced the first annual report of the Sports Council of Northern Ireland, he emphasised that out of every £5 of public expenditure, only one penny went towards sport and recreation. On that occasion he didn’t ask that the £5 should be increased but that the penny should be. In Eastern Germany it would be at least 25 pence.

This theme is taking a stage further in the report “Sport” and recreation in this country rank too low in the government’s order of priorities.

Lack of money should never be allowed to cast shadows over logical thought. Humdrum halls aren’t going to inspire anyone, let alone bring together young and old, beginners and talented, different creeds and all walks of life.

The solution is not to decide between major sports complexes and parish halls, it’s a matter of assessing what is the appropriate requirement of each geographical unit of population and including it as part of an orderly financial recreation programme”.

The council recognises the particular political, economic and social difficulties surrounding its first two years, but states that “it is in these times that the steady logic of an independent sports body of special value and the report outlines the dangers to society when urbanisation is combined with the erosion of opportunities for the natural need for physical exercise”.

Despite the present recession the country faces, sport provision made good progress. Grant payments by the Department of Education to district councils increased by almost £1 million. Normally the council’s advice on grants in respect of facilities for sport and physical recreation is accepted by the department, but it points out that on a number of occasions, it has neither been consulted or informed in relation to major decisions on policy and practice in the area of facilities provisions.

The NI Sports Council claimed that not enough resources were being spent on sport and recreation with the result that society was missing out on the enormous benefits that sport brings to communities.