Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The sports capital grant scheme is clearly very important but we need to move away from it. We need a sports facility strategy, which ensures that funding delivers resources to where they are needed when they are needed rather than being awarded following good political lobbying. Very often, you find that the big, almost professional clubs, which are well resourced and have very deep pockets have the expertise or can afford the expertise to ensure that their application gets over the line. It is not a coincidence that the sports capital grants deliver for affluent areas rather than disadvantaged areas. The scheme ensures that there is some accommodation for that but we need to move away from the capital grant scheme and put in a sports facility strategy.

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