Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am taking the matter on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Thomas Byrne, who has noted with dismay the reports of recent vandalism and damage to the sports facilities in Dublin.

I saw some of the reporting on it myself. It was more than superficial damage, from my view of it. I cannot stress enough the importance and value of such facilities to local communities.

The maintenance and management of the sports facilities of Dublin City Council is a matter for the local authority. The Department has been informed by DCC that the regime of annual pitch improvement works carried out over the past few years has improved the resilience of the playing surfaces to, and acted to protect the pitches from, excessive damage when recently vandalised. DCC also confirms that a sports turf contractor was engaged to carry out works last week, which has improved the surface and ameliorated much of the damage. That is welcome.

Increasing the level of participation in sport and physical activity across the whole population is a fundamental aim of the Government's National Sports Policy 2018-2027 and a priority for the Minister, Deputy Martin, and the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne. In pursuit of that objective, the Government is committed to a "sport for all" approach aimed at ensuring that all persons have the opportunity to partake equally in sport and physical activity, regardless of gender, age, social-economic status, disability or membership of minority groups such as the LGBTI+ community, the Traveller community or other ethnic minorities.

The Dormant Accounts Fund sports programme is the primary funding stream deployed exclusively to promote increased sports participation among disadvantaged communities and people with a disability. This programme provides financial supports to a wide range of locally inspired community projects undertaken by local sports clubs, associations and other interested parties generally, under the active guidance of the 29 local sports partnerships around the country.

The sports capital and equipment programme is the primary vehicle for Government support for the development of sports and recreation facilities and the purchase of non-personal sports equipment throughout the country. Over 13,000 projects have now benefited from sports capital funding since 1998, bringing the total allocations in that time to over €1.15 billion. We all agree that the SCEP has transformed the sporting landscape with improved facilities in every town and village in the country. The programme for Government commits to continuing the SCEP and to targeting the investment in disadvantaged areas. As well as being open to individual sports clubs, applications are accepted from local authorities. Dublin City Council has previously received significant grant funding for sports facilities projects, including sports pitches used by football clubs. The maximum grant available under the SCEP has been increased to €500,000. The latest round of the SCEP closed for applications on Friday, 8 September 2023. A preliminary examination of the submitted applications demonstrates that the programme has again generated a very large number of applications. The total number of 3,210 applications exceeded the record number submitted in the previous round. This includes ten applications from Dublin City Council, which is welcome.

The scoring assessment and assessment manual for the 2023 round has been finalised and published along with the full list of applications received by county, including the relevant sport type for each application received. The detailed assessment work has commenced, and it is planned to assess the "equipment-only" applications first and announce those grants in the coming months. Work will then commence on assessing the capital applications, with allocations likely to be announced later in 2024.

Any application for funding will be considered on its merits, based on the agreed scoring system. As the Deputy will be aware, the schemes favour projects that will increase participation and sharing of facilities among a number of sports and clubs, and priority is always given to applications from disadvantaged areas. The criterion the Deputy spoke about of the clubs all sharing these grounds is critical. As he said, many of the young people participating are from disadvantaged backgrounds. Again, what happened is very unfortunate. It constitutes criminal damage to the grounds, which is a disgrace. The work DCC has done is helping to build that resilience in pitches so they can be repaired more easily.

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