Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 187: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if there are grants available for AstroTurf training or playing pitches for county or local authority facilities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30992/05]

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)
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The national lottery-funded sports capital programme, which is administered by my Department, provides funding at local, regional and national level throughout the country to voluntary, sporting and community organisations and to local authorities towards the provision of sport and recreational facilities, including AstroTurf training or playing pitches. The programme is advertised on an annual basis. Applications for funding under the 2005 programme were invited through advertisements in the press on 5 and 6 December 2004 and I announced provisional grant allocations of €54.385 million under the programme in July. A total of €9,345,000 was allocated to 58 projects which included synthetic or all-weather playing surfaces. Of these, a total of eight such local authority projects were allocated €2,580,000. I intend to invite applications to the 2006 programme before the end of this year.