Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I may address that point, when one comes in here and someone questions one's integrity, which is what Deputy Munster is doing, it is important to set the record straight. Every application was adjudicated on by the very dedicated officials working in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. They were deemed to be either valid or invalid. The breakdown was roughly 80% to 20%, which was a big improvement from the 52% to 48% breakdown we had just a few short years ago in 2012. After that, each application was given a certain number of points based on the published criteria set out by the Department. Under those criteria, four different levels of disadvantage are considered. This is linked to the Pobal deprivation index. Depending on where an applicant is on the Pobal deprivation is, points will be allocated to their application. This was applied directly to all applicants. The score which the applicants got was then used in a formula, which also reflected the amount of valid funding sought by the applicants. Using that formula, a recommended allocation was arrived at. That was the exactly the figure which was allocated to those sports capital programme applicants. There was no interference from the Minister of myself. There could not have been a fairer way of doing this. When we cast our minds back to the way in which it used to be done in the past, this was a completely new departure which was very positive for the sports capital programme.

As I said, every single valid applicant under the local aspect of the sports capital programme received funding based entirely on the points they received and the amount they sought. I do not know how any Minister could have done it any more fairly than that. It is so easy for people to say that €150,000 was allocated to the Minister's backyard. There were applicants in his backyard that did not get through the appeals system as well. There were four invalid applications in Kerry for which appeals were sought and none of them received funding.

One of them was close to my office, in the next village over in Milltown. It was a primary school which was found to be invalid. There is another, Camp United, where a man who works with me is heavily involved. They were told in black and white that they were invalid. Another school up the road, Faha national school, was also invalid. I would have loved to see all these get funding but they did not because there was no interference from the Minister. Another application in Kerry, Scoil Phobal Sliabh Luachra, also did not get funding because it was invalid. That is a black and white matter. Officials went through the review process, for the first time, which was progress, to ensure that we did not make mistakes and stand over them as happened in the past. We acknowledge that mistakes can be made, and we should be thorough and ensure that there is no overinterpretation or false interpretation of our rules. That happened, 148 applicants applied for the review process, and 35 got through. None of it was through ministerial intervention. The list was given to us, we approved it, and there were no changes.

The cheap efforts made in recent weeks to implicate one Minister or another as having interfered in this review process have been pathetic to see when what actually happened was the most progressive sports capital programme in its history going back to 1998. It stands up to scrutiny. There is nothing to see here in terms of the conspiracy theories I have heard about one intervention or another. How we did this was good work for the sports capital programme and I would stand over it any day of the week because I think what we did was fair. The applicants were awarded on the merits of their applications and for no other reasons.