Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)
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Question 28: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the reason for the delay in appointing a steering group to oversee the commencement of a national audit of sports facilities. [20254/05]

Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 41: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if a national audit of sports facilities has been completed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20227/05]

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 28 and 41 together.

The agreed programme for Government contains a commitment to complete a national audit of local sports facilities and to put in place a long-term strategic plan to ensure the development of such necessary facilities throughout the country.

I wish to advise the Deputies that an inter-agency steering group has been established to oversee the development of such a strategy and is commencing its work. The group is comprised of representatives from my Department along with officials from the Departments of Education and Science, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and Finance, in addition to representatives of the Irish Sports Council, Campus Stadium Ireland Development Limited and the County and City Managers Association. One of the first challenges facing the group is to oversee the commencement of a national audit of sports facilities.

Before commencing work on the strategic plan an assessment of what has been achieved under the Department's sports capital programme was undertaken. This was done in the context of an Expenditure review of the programme which seeks to assess the benefits that the investment has yielded to date and to identify any difficulties or inefficiencies associated with the operation of the programme. This review has taken longer than expected to complete due to the scale of the programme and the time required to analyse the volume of information and data that was collected during the review.