Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I welcome the money, as does the industry. The Minister mentioned the sports capital grants. It would be chaotic if that scheme were to be run on a first come, first served basis. When opening and closing dates are issued, all the applicants have to be assessed case-by-case based on their qualifications. The Minister or the officials can then put them in whatever order will be acceptable. This would be in contrast to saying in the middle of an application scheme, however, that it is first come, first served and hard luck to all those after number 33 that do not qualify. This seems to have been the case in this regard rather than looking to see if the money could be divided up in a more equal way, or perhaps even look at a regional distribution. The fact no venue north of Galway or west of Louth got any of the funding suggests something else is going on here. I welcome that the Minister is going to run this scheme again, but I ask him to please examine it and run it in a different way from what it looks like was done in this instance.

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