Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I worked closely with a couple of clubs that lost out. In one case, it related to the title deeds. The solicitor advising the club advised that the trustees should be named in the title instead of the club. That is arbitrary. Everything else was in order. In another case, a date was left off one of the quotes for a tender. I wonder whether that is a proper ground to invalidate an application. The appeals process is, therefore, important to give clubs and the Department an opportunity to review whether there should be some flexibility. Although it is not the case anymore, during previous rounds of the programme, there was a sense that these reasons were used as a system to weed out clubs. I welcome the Minister of State's comment that it is hoped to have a future round. Will he introduce an early bird system in order that where clubs are missing something simple but vital to the application, it is flagged with them early in the process and they have the opportunity to rectify that within a month or be informed that they are out? The expectation that is generated when the process goes on for a year with clubs thinking they are included in the programme when they are not is damaging.

See this speech in context