Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

It has nothing to do with Limerick or with officials. The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism has released statistics on the number of applications for capital sports grants. Given the massive amounts of money poured into sport since 1997, when the Government appointed a Minister to Cabinet with responsibility for sport, one would have expected that there would be a decrease in the number of grant applications. In fact, the number of applications has increased. Last year there were 1,300 applications for a fund of €65 million. This year that number of applications has been exceeded but the funding has not increased proportionately. The question arises, therefore——