Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to be back here in the Seanad. Statements like this are not just an opportunity to update the House on these particular topics, but, more important, to also offer an opportunity to hear the perspective of Senators on these issues. I look forward to our discussion on what are two different but hugely important issues.

I will start with the issue of rail in the greater Dublin area, GDA. The Government recognises that rail is not just a GDA but a national issue. Reflecting on that, I will shortly seek Government approval for a €1 billion investment programme in our rail network. That investment will benefit every part of the network, from Ballina to Dublin to Killarney. This investment is needed to maintain, renew and improve the network over the next five years and deliver better journey times, improved reliability and continued safety. This investment is significant and welcome and I look forward to the benefits of this funding over the next five years.

That investment will complement the construction of the new national train control centre. It was approved by the Government this summer and I understand construction will start in earnest in the new year. We all know we need this level of investment. Passenger numbers are increasing all the time, particularly in the GDA. The GDA commuter network carries approximately 70% of all passenger journeys on the network every year.In the last few years the National Transport Authority, NTA, and larnród Éireann, supported by increased PSO funding, have expanded commuter services across the greater Dublin area. I have no doubt that Senators will acknowledge these increased services, such as the introduction of Phoenix Park tunnel services bringing Kildare line commuters into the heart of the city, their subsequent expansion in more recent times, and the introduction of the long-awaited ten-minute DART service last year. While these service improvements are obviously welcome, we need to do more. An important part of that is expanding the fleet.

In the last few weeks the Government approved the purchase of 41 additional railcars for InterCity services, which will add significant capacity on the greater Dublin area rail network. These 41 additional carriages will increase capacity by approximately 34% on the Kildare, Maynooth and northern lines during morning peak time and will start entering service by late 2021. I ask the House to allow me to expand a little on how that decision was arrived at.

There are those who say other options should have been pursued or that the chosen option could have been done more cheaply. Of course, alternative options were considered. One of those options was to refurbish older rolling stock and bring it back into service but that option simply did not work out. The initial projected costs were not borne out by the actual tenders received. I hope the House agrees that, when we talk about spending taxpayers' money, we need to make sure we are making the right call. I am told that option simply was not the right call. Along with that option, there was also the proposal to purchase additional carriages for the existing InterCity railcar fleet. It was decided by the NTA and larnród Éireann this year to proceed with this proposal and purchase the additional carriages. Senators will be aware that all expenditure of taxpayers' money must comply with the public spending code. The proposal to purchase additional carriages was therefore developed into a business case and that business case was submitted to my Department at the end of August. In line with the public spending code, that business case was evaluated by my Department and, because of the scale of expenditure, it was also evaluated by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I assure Senators that there was no undue delay and that I brought the matter to Government in October.

I have also seen some commentary suggesting that alleged delays caused an increase in the cost. I do not accept that. No business case was submitted until late August and, while the total project will cost almost €150 million, the carriages themselves cost just over €100 million, with the remainder of the costs comprising related things like compatibility works, spares, design and VAT. Therefore, there has been no great shift in the cost of the actual carriages since the proposal was first referenced publicly in late 2016. I hope that clarifies that particular point.

I assure Senators that I know this purchase is just a short-term measure. The game-changer for rail in the greater Dublin area is the DART expansion programme. Next year, I expect to receive a business case in respect of this multi-billion euro investment. It is a very exciting project which will effectively double the capacity of the greater Dublin area rail network compared with today. When it is finished, the DART really will serve the entire Dublin area, as its name suggests. Preparation has already begun. Earlier this year the NTA and larnród Éireann commenced procurement pre-qualifying for the purchase of a minimum of 300 electric and battery electric trains. The way the procurement competition will be structured means that number can increase up to 600 carriages if required over the ten years of the procurement framework. This will provide a flexible and speedy way to ensure that demand can be served by additional fleet if needed. Senators will appreciate that new rail fleet is not sitting in a showroom somewhere waiting for a new owner to turn up and take it away. It needs to be built to the specifications of the purchaser and, in our case, to the specifications of our unique rail gauge. It will therefore take between three and four years after the award of the contract before this new DART fleet starts to arrive. That does not mean, however, that nothing is being done in the meantime.

As well as the arrival of the 41 additional carriages the year after next, the core city section of the wider city centre resignalling project will be commissioned next year. When this project is complete, it will significantly increase the capacity of the network through the bottleneck of the loop line bridge across the Liffey. Next year will also see construction commence on a new station at Pelletstown on the north side, the Kishoge station in west Dublin will open and the station improvement works at Pearse will finish.

Of course, everything we are doing in terms of improving our rail network in the greater Dublin area is set out in the transport strategy for the greater Dublin area, which is a statutory transport plan for the region that, importantly, must be reflected in land-use plans across the greater Dublin area. This type of integrated land-use and transport planning was long sought, was fought hard for, and represents international best practice. I have no doubt that Senators will have their own views as regards particular projects in the greater Dublin area. I am happy to inform the House that, towards the end of next year, the NTA will begin a review of the existing transport strategy. This review will provide an important opportunity to consider whether additional projects above and beyond the extensive measures in the current strategy should be included. I hope Senators can recognise that there are a number of measures under way over the short, medium and longer term which will improve and enhance rail services across the greater Dublin area. I look forward to hearing their views later.

I would like to now turn to our second topic and thank Senators for the opportunity to update the House on the sports capital programme. As Senators will be aware, the sports capital programme is the Government's primary vehicle to support the development of sports facilities and the purchase of sports equipment. More than 10,000 projects have benefited from sports capital funding since 1998 with the total invested in that period amounting to approximately €1 billion. Grants under the programme have directly improved sports facilities in virtually every village, town and city in the country. Before I deal specifically with the latest round of the programme, I would like to take a step back and speak briefly about why we should continue to provide public funding for sports facilities.

It is well established that participation in sport plays a significant role in improving people's health and well-being. Initiatives that encourage people to exercise regularly can help to reduce the incidence of strokes, cancer and depression, resulting in higher productivity and lower healthcare costs. With regard to our younger people, the World Health Organization, WHO, regards childhood obesity as one of the most serious global public health challenges for the 21st century. Childhood obesity has become such a problem in part due to children living increasingly sedentary lifestyles where physical activity has been replaced by watching TV, playing video games and spending time on smartphones. Accordingly, if we are to compete with these other distractions, we must have good quality, safe and attractive sports facilities.

Similarly, at the top level, we know that sporting success has the ability to lift the spirits of communities, counties and even the whole nation. Our county GAA stars, our international soccer, rugby and hockey teams, and our Olympians inspire us all. This high-level success is never achieved overnight, however, and we need to invest in facilities at grassroots level to nurture these talents.

With these factors in mind, enhanced investment is sports facilities is a key policy objective of the Government. The Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, and I launched the Government's national sports policy last year. The policy statement sets out our vision for sport in 2027 along with 57 specific actions to transform our sporting landscape. Increasing participation is a cornerstone of the policy and we have set an ambitious target to have half our adult population regularly participating in sport by 2027.Furthermore, we want people participating in sport regardless of their background or physical capabilities.

Within the policy statement is a commitment that the Government will continue to invest in sports facilities and central to this objective will be our continued support for the sports capital programme. The most recent grants under the programme were announced over the last week and represented the final set of allocations under the 2018 round. The application period closed on Friday, 19 October 2018, and by that deadline a record 2,337 applications were submitted seeking a total of €162 million in funding. A total of 186 of these applications were for projects deemed invalid under the 2017 round of the programme that subsequently submitted corrected documents. These applications were assessed first and approximately €7 million in allocations to 170 projects were announced on 17 January; 619 equipment only applications were assessed next and 466 allocations with a value of €9.8 million were announced in May. On Friday last, we allocated a total of €37 million to 994 different projects and earlier today we announced further grants totalling €2.58 million to 15 regional sports projects.

I would like to speak briefly about the reforms we have introduced under the two most recent rounds of the programme. The Minister of State, Deputy Brendan Griffin, and I were determined that the system of applying for grants should be as user-friendly as possible and the methodology for allocating funding fully transparent and fair. A previous criticism of the programme was the number of applications deemed invalid at assessment stage. This gave rise to understandable frustration from applicants who had invested significant time and effort in making their applications. There was also a perception that the whole application process was cumbersome and difficult.

To address these concerns, several improvements have been introduced. The measures include a significantly shortened application form, more online validation of applications and the hosting of a series of regional seminars for potential applicants. Importantly, first-time applicants who submitted incorrect documentation under the latest round of the programme were given the opportunity to correct their application during the assessment phase. Some of these measures may have delayed the overall timeframe of the assessment process, but have been very well received by applicants.

The measures to reduce the invalid rate have been overwhelmingly successful. The proportion of invalid applications fell from one third in previous rounds to one fifth in 2017, and this has been reduced to less than one tenth under the 2018 round. Ironically this improvement does make the allocation of funding even more challenging as we have even more applications to consider. I think all Senators will agree, however, that it is the fairest way to treat our applicants and achieve the best overall results.

A further improvement we made under the 2017 round of the programme was the introduction of an appeals system for unsuccessful candidates. This will be continued under the 2018 round and unsuccessful candidates will be contacted shortly with details on how they can appeal the outcome of the assessment process.

In regard to individual grant amounts, historically there was no clear documentation showing how individual grants were decided. For the first time, we published the full scoring system and assessment process for the 2017 round in advance of assessment work commencing and this was again done for the 2018 round. Every application was then scored using the published criteria which included the likelihood of the project increasing participation, whether the proposed facilities would be shared with other users, the level of socioeconomic disadvantage in the area and the level of funding which the organisation received previously.

For the 2018 allocations, the total available funding was first divided by county, based on theper capitaentitlement and level of demand from that county. The exact amount allocated to each project was then based on a formula which combined the assessment score obtained, the amount of funding sought and the total amount of funding available for that county. The scoring system for the 2018 round of the programme was amended to give an even greater weighting towards projects from disadvantaged areas and towards projects that shared the facilities with other users. The net outcome is that more than 1,600 individual projects benefited under the 2018 round of the programme.

While the main field sports such as GAA, soccer and rugby again did very well, any fair analysis will acknowledge the diversity and spread of grants awarded. Last week's grants alone covered 37 different sports, including boxing, squash, rowing, and athletics to name just a few. While I believe we have made real progress in terms of improving the overall programme, we must always look to improve further. With this in mind, I have asked my officials to undertake a full review of the latest round of the programme to suggest any further changes. This will include an examination of how we might speed up the overall assessment process and whether we can reduce the invalid rate further. I look forward to hearing any views of Senators in this regard and will be very happy to take on board any suggestions if they meet with approval from the officials.

Before concluding I would like to touch briefly on one other significant development regarding Government funding for sports capital projects. The national sports policy also provided for the establishment of a new large scale sport infrastructure fund, LSSIF. The aim of the fund is to provide support for larger sports facilities where the Exchequer investment is greater than the maximum amount available under the sports capital programme. The new fund is designed to provide a transparent and robust system for funding such projects. The Government has provided a capital allocation of at least €100 million for the period to 2027 for the LSSIF. The new scheme closed for applications on 17 April, with applications initially confined to local authorities and national governing bodies of sport. By the closing date, 72 applications were received. Assessment work is well advanced and it is hoped to make the first allocations in the near future.

I hope that I have provided Senators with a good overview of where we are in respect of Government support for sports capital projects. I believe that Government investment in sport is money well spent and the sports capital programme remains an excellent example of the Government supporting the voluntary sector in a way that benefits entire communities. While we can always improve matters, I am proud of the reforms we have made in recent years. Furthermore, the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, and I will continue to make the case for enhanced investment in sport infrastructure in the years ahead to ensure that all of the objectives set out in the national sports policy are met.

We look forward to seeing the many projects that recently received funding advancing, but also seeing new applicants being given the opportunity to submit new proposals as soon as possible. To conclude, I would like to thank Senators for the opportunity to discuss these two very divergent but important areas of my Department's work and I look forward to hearing their views.