Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I think it is about €200 million per year. It would be much nicer if it was in legislation that it had to be split equally between sports and culture but that is the way it is at the moment. I should point that even though the sports capital budget is up, there is a small reduction in the Irish Sports Council budget, which is the current side. However, it is not a huge reduction. It is only about 2% or 3%. Some of those savings will be delivered because of the Haddington Road savings. There is no reason some of the sporting bodies should not follow on from that and implement the Haddington Road savings in their organisations. What we have tried to do with the support for the Irish Sports Council is protect certain programmes, women in sport and smaller national governing bodies, NGBs, that do not have access to commercial income or sponsorship. Quite graciously, they accepted it. The larger cut is for the GAA, FAI and the IRFU on the basis that they have ticket sales and access to sponsorship. The cuts to the smaller NGBs that do not have that have really been nominal, which is probably the right decision to take.

There is no budget lined up for the Rugby World Cup but there may have to be down the line. There is no cut yet. Any small amount of money we need at this stage is being used from the Fáilte Ireland budget because it is covered by tourism at this stage rather than sport. For the first time in a number of years, there was no overspend last year so sport spent all the money allocated to it last year. It is a bit strange with the clubs. They get a grant and a couple of years to draw it down. We must guess every year how much they are going to look for because they must show they have the works done, put the logo up and all the rest of it before we pay out. If they were all to look for the money tomorrow, it would be about €70 million, which we do not have. Thankfully, that does not happen so the Department must make an educated guess every year as to how much they are going to ask for. Sometimes, it under runs. It has not over run since I have been around but one day it will happen and I am sure we will find the money somewhere.