Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I will deal with a few myself and the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, can deal with some as well. The objective of this scheme is to widen the number of people who can participate in sport. That includes people from all areas of society. We are concerned about the numbers. It is important to us that they increase over the years. They are specifically geared and weighted toward the disadvantaged. That is perfectly clear from some of the figures that emerged from the sports capital grants. It is fair to say that 22 out of 44 of these schools, that is 50%, that received sports capital grants, are located in disadvantaged areas and 1,000 out of 1,800 grants were allocated to disadvantaged areas. That is a fact. There is room, for sure, for improvement.

However, the weightings, which are available, will show that a heavy weighting gives disadvantaged areas a certain edge. I will outline some of the six criteria and weightings. The level of socioeconomic disadvantage in the area gets a weighting of five. The likelihood of increasing participation and or improving performance gets a weighting of seven. The sharing of facilities gets a weighting of four. The level of own funding available gets a weighting of five but that is skewed in a way that is actually in favour of disadvantaged people as well. If the Deputy wishes, I will ask my officials to explain. The level of the sports capital programme received in the past ten years gets a lower weighting because it is less likely disadvantaged areas will have had that. The whole thrust of this particular programme is to give disadvantaged areas an advantage. That is its whole purpose. That can be seen in the statistics with the number of clubs and the number of schools. That will continue and may even be accelerated. Now, it has been said-----