Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 397: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the amount of funds which have been made available on a county basis for each of the past five years under his funding towards sports and recreational projects; if he is satisfied that all areas have been treated in an equal manner; if not, his proposals to and the way the funds are distributed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22673/05]

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)
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The national lottery funded sports capital programme allocates funding to sporting and to voluntary and community organisations at local, regional and national level throughout the country. The programme is advertised on an annual basis. I am providing in tabular format the specific data requested by the Deputy for the funding allocated to each county for each year from 2000 to 2004. The funding allocation amounts in the table relate to the sports capital programme and to a small number of other sports capital projects outside of that programme that are occasionally funded, such as allocations of €100,000 towards the refurbishment for Mosney for its continual hosting of the Community Games and €650,000 to the provision of a headquarters for the Olympic Council of Ireland in 2004.

Applications under the sports capital programme are assessed in accordance with detailed assessment criteria to improve the selection process that were introduced following a comprehensive review of my Department's programme completed in December 1998. Among the factors covered by the criteria are the level of socio-economic disadvantage in the area and the extent to which the project will increase participation in such areas, current and planned levels of sport and-or recreational sport facilities in the area and the priority of proposed improvements-facilities in respect of existing facilities, the need to achieve an equitable spread of funds both geographically having regard to existing facilities and among different sports and community groups, the extent to which the project will increase the levels of active participation in sport and/or recreational sport, the financial viability of the project, the level of own funding available by the applicant towards the project and the extent to which the applicant will be able to maintain the project after completion and the priorities for their individual sports, as identified by the national governing bodies.

Regard is given to the population levels in each county and to providing a pro rata level of funding on that basis. The assessment process must also take into account existing levels of facilities in an area and also the strategic positioning of major facilities that may be required and the quality of applications received for such projects. Applications under the programme are received from organisations for local, regional and national facilities. Each year, a number of major regional, national and municipal multi-sport projects are allocated funding following consultations with the Irish Sports Council, other Government Departments and the relevant national governing bodies of sport and local authorities in respect of their respective priorities for the provision of sporting facilities. The level of this funding may distort the total allocations to the counties in which they are located.

My Department also administers the local authority swimming pool programme, which provides grant aid towards the capital costs of a new pool, a replacement pool or the refurbishment of an existing pool. The programme provides for a maximum grant level of 80% of eligible costs or 90% in the case of disadvantaged areas subject to a maximum of €3.8 million. The closing date for receipt of applications under the current programme was 31 July 2000. There are four principal stages in a swimming pool project. These, in order of progress, are a feasibility study-preliminary report, contract documents, tender and construction. My Department's technical advisers, the Office of Public Works, OPW, evaluate each stage and local authorities cannot proceed to the next stage of a project unless prior approval issues from my Department. Grant aid is not allocated until the tenders have been approved for a project. Since 2000, grant aid has been approved towards the cost of the following swimming pool projects.

In addition, ten projects have been approved to go to tender, 12 are at contract documents stage and eight are at preliminary report stage. These projects are located in Cork, two in Donegal, four in Dublin, Galway, two in Kerry, two in Kildare, Kilkenny, two in Laois, Limerick, Longford, two in Mayo, four in Offaly, Roscommon, two in Tipperary, two in Wexford and two in Wicklow. There is no doubt that all counties have benefited tremendously from the significantly increased funding detailed above.