John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

I have no plans to establish an independent body to monitor grant aid to sporting organisations allocated funding under my Department's sports capital programme. The current arrangements for administering the scheme which have been applied by successive Governments over many years have been extremely successful in ensuring the programme is responsive to local needs. It is entirely appropriate that the Minister for sport should be in a position to use this important instrument of sporting policy to achieve objectives such as supporting projects of particular local or regional significance or encouraging the development of minority sports. Over the six-year period 1999-2004, inclusive, €313.5 million has been allocated to over 4,000 projects. This massive investment in the creation of a local sporting infrastructure is now yielding benefits both in terms of local community developments and increased participation in sport. The scheme is administered in accordance with pre-determined eligibility criteria, all of which must be satisfied before projects may access funding allocated to them.

I remind the Deputy that as Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, I am directly accountable to Dáil Éireann for the operation of the sports capital programme. This accountability is ongoing and finds expression, for example, through parliamentary questions, Adjournment debates, Estimates debates and engagement with Dáil committees. This is a feature which would be notably absent were the administration of the sports capital programme to be made the responsibility of an independent board. Apart from the obvious issue of how one determines "independence", experience elsewhere has shown that decisions by independent boards do not always receive universal acceptance. Where a grant scheme attracts a level of applications well in excess of available funding as is the case with the sports capital programme, unsuccessful applicants will always experience an understandable sense of disappointment, whatever the decision-making process.

Given the massive investment of public funding in sports facilities since 1999, which apart from the sports capital programme also includes other significant national facilities and the local authority swimming pool programme, the Government committed in An Agreed Programme for Government to develop a strategic plan for the future provision of sports facilities. This plan will include a national audit of sports facilities and will also review the eligibility criteria for the sports capital programme. The current criteria were adopted following a review of the programme carried out in 1998.

I am satisfied the development of the long-term strategic plan, building on the advances made in recent years in the area of facility provision, will ensure continued good value for money, effective use of resources, an equitable distribution of available funding for a wide range of sports and the availability of high-quality, sustainable facilities for all levels and types of sport across the country.

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