Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 55: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the position on carrying out an audit of sport facilities here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15356/04]

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)
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A national audit of local sports facilities should be undertaken as part of the development of a long-term strategic plan for the provision of sports facilities.

The first step towards developing such a strategy, a review of the existing sports capital programme under the Department's expenditure review programme, is currently being finalised. The outcome of this review will help identify the level of facilities that have been put in place in recent years with the assistance of national lottery funding and produce recommendations on priorities for future funding.

Following that, I intend to establish an inter-agency steering group to commence work immediately on developing a long-term strategic plan for the provision of sports facilities. One of the first tasks for this group will be to oversee the commencement of the audit of sports facilities. Given the volume of facilities that may potentially be included in such an audit, covering the entire country, it is important that a robust methodology is used to record, classify and assess the facilities to be included.

In view of the scale of the task, it could take a number of years to complete a comprehensive audit of all sports facilities. However, it may be possible to conduct the work in stages to ensure that some useful results are available in the short term for input into the proposed strategic plan for the provision of sports facilities due for completion within the next year.