Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There have been significant supports to sporting organisations during Covid. There have been general Covid supports. There have been energy supports as well in the context of the price rises that happened after Covid.

In terms of sports capital funding, one could apply for existing projects up to the existing limits in the previous sports capital round to cover the costs of inflation. Quite a number of the large-scale projects did not get off the ground as well, because of construction inflation mainly and because of the impact of Covid.

We invited all of the recipients of the previous round of large-scale funding to apply for further funding and we will be finalising that tomorrow. We will also be announcing a new round of the LSSIF in the new year.

We recognise that there were significant challenges during Covid. We reached out to those who had received funding. They sought more. We had really good engagement with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in relation to that to achieving extra funding, and we are grateful for that.

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