Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of months ago we had the great announcement of sports capital grants for about 1,900 successful applicants across the country and some €140 million was invested into sports clubs, which has been hugely welcomed by those clubs. It is the largest sports capital investment that has been given to clubs since the measure was reintroduced by a Fine Gael Government a number of years ago.

An appeals process is taking place and €6 million in funding has been put aside for same. A GAA club in Tipperary, Clerihan GAA, was unsuccessful on the first round. It has made some changes to its application and has put in an appeal. Paddy Flannery, John O'Rourke and the committee have put an awful lot of work into this application because they spent an awful lot of money to do some work in the hope that, like the 1,900 clubs that were successful, they would be successful too.

One of the requests is to find out when a decision will be made and if that club would be successful. My colleague, Councillor John Fitzgerald, has worked with the club on this issue for the last number of weeks to try to make it successful. He has written to the Minister to stress the importance of this town and village, which is a satellite village of Clonmel that has increased in size in recent years because of high employment across Clonmel. The club needs to benefit on the back of that too and I ask the Leader to support Councillor Fitzgerald and me on this application and on any other applications that are put in. When so many clubs are successful more clubs want that funding as well. This is an important application for that area.