Paddy McHugh (Galway East, Independent)
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Question 14: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if he will give special consideration to the application from a group (details supplied) in County Galway under the sports capital programme. [9141/05]

Paddy McHugh (Galway East, Independent)
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Question 238: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if he will give special consideration to the application from a group (details supplied) in County Galway under the sports capital programme. [9091/05]

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 14 and 238 together.

The national lottery funded sports capital programme, which is administered by my Department, allocates funding to sporting and community organisations at local, regional and national level throughout the country. The programme is advertised on an annual basis.

The 2005 programme was advertised in the national newspapers on 5 and 6 December 2004. The deadline for receipt of applications was 4 February 2005. A total of 1,362 applications were received before that deadline and these applications, including one from the organisation in question, are currently being evaluated against the programme's assessment criteria, which are outlined in the guidelines, terms and conditions of the programme. The assessment process compares applications with the other applications from the same county. In keeping with Government policy, the assessment process gives greater weighting for projects from areas designated as disadvantaged, that is, RAPID, CLÁR and local drugs task force areas.

I intend to announce the provisional grant allocations for the programme as soon as possible after the assessment process has been completed.