Cowen and Junior Minister visit Offaly sports capital hopefuls

Fianna Fáil European election candidate, Barry Cowen last week welcomed Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Thomas Byrne, to Offaly to visit sports clubs across his Dáil constituency.

The Minister and Deputy Cowen, who is running for Europe in the Midlands North-West region, visited hurling, camogie, football and soccer clubs on Thursday last to discuss their applications for funding via the Sports Capital Grants Programme.

Minister Byrne and the Laois/Offaly TD met with volunteers and members of Tullamore Sports Link, Shamrocks GAA, Clara GAA, Shannonbridge GAA, Belmont/Ferbane GAA, St. Rynagh's Hurling Club, Kilcormac/Killoughey Camogie and Hurling Club, Offaly Camogie Grounds, Ballyskenach GAA, Moneygall GAA and Moneygall FC.

Deputy Cowen said: 'I want to commend Thomas for making the effort to come down and meet the clubs and volunteers and see for himself the effort that's being made for the promotion of boy's and girls' clubs, especially where they are amalgamating and insisting that the facilities are available for both right up to senior level.

"We hope and we're very confident he'll look favourably on those applications."

"It's good to look at local communities and what they can do with sports capital," Minister Byrne added. "I think it's really important that we keep doing that.

"We want to get more people physically active, we want to get more girls involved in sport so that needs a lot of funding and I'm working with government colleagues to make sure we can deliver."

Minister Byrne wished Deputy Cowen well in his campaign for a seat in the Midlands North-West constituency ahead of the European elections on June 7.

"There's a great opportunity to have serious voices from Ireland heard in the European parliament and I just want to wish Barry the very best of luck with that.

"The European Union looks after an awful lot of issues in Ireland, for the better I would say. Every single European law that comes to pass is passed by our MEPs.

"That's why it's really important that people like Barry Cowen can be in the European parliament to represent the people of Ireland when those laws are being made."