Paralympic gold medal-winning swimmer Darragh McDonald has called on the government to provide equal funding for Paralympic and able bodied athletes.

He made the remarks at Farmleigh where the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Minister for Sport Leo Varadkar are hosting a reception for Irish Paralympic athletes.

The Gorey athlete won gold in the S6 400m freestyle swimming in London and came 4th in the 100m freestyle.

Showing off his medal at Farmleigh this afternoon he said it is time for those involved in Paralympic sport to be treated equally.

“There’s a lot of volunteers working inside in Paralympic sport – I know our coach for swimming is a volunteer” he said.

“For people to be totally professional and to bring forward professional athletes, they need to be professionally paid themselves”.

“Able-bodied sport it’s not a problem, they’ve no problem paying people – so Paralympic sport should be the same”.

“We’ve proven ourselves now and it’s time to act upon what we’ve done” he added.

The Taoiseach says the government will do the best it can to protect funding to Team Paralympics Ireland.

The team brought back 16 medals which is the best performance ever of an Irish Paralympic Team.

Enda Kenny says the team has done the country so proud.

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