Cost of living: Irish sporting clubs feeling the pinch

Despite a €35million fund being established in this week's budget, sports clubs are still likely to be deeply effected by the cost of living crisis this winter.

With fuel and energy costs causing a strain financially on so many, RTÉ Sport spoke to a number of clubs in different sports to see how they were being impacted.

Anne Murphy from Banbridge Amateur Boxing Club, Manus Canon from Dunlewey Celtic and Carol Boyle from Moy Davitt's GAA spoke about how the crisis is making its mark at ground level.

Banbridge Amateur Boxing Club

Anne Murphy's name is a well-known one on the Irish amateur boxing scene. Grafting out of the Banbridge Amateur Boxing Club, she is everything and everywhere – coach, referee, secretary, grant officer. She’s even put together books about the sport in the County Down town.

She has been there from day one since the current club’s formation in 2006, and 16 years later her enthusiasm remains as strong as ever – but the current cost of living crisis is darkening the mood.

The club have tried to take sensible steps, such as replacing the lights outside their Havelock Park complex with low-energy replacements – but the bills just continue to stack up.

"Our finances are probably lower than they have been for a long time," Murphy admitted.

"We got two letters from Firmus [energy supplier] over this past six months and one was to say that there was an increase of 57% and the other one was an increase of 29%, so there’s an increase of almost 100% inside a year.

"Electricity is going the same way but the council still wants their ground rent, that’s not being reduced, so it’s a lot, lot harder right now."

The one big difference for the club has been the need to cherrypick what events to send boxers to and what