Michael Lowry (Tipperary North, Independent)
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Question 343: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the grant programmes available from his Department and from agencies under his responsibility; and the deadlines of each programme. [33921/05]

John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)
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My Department's arts and culture capital enhancement support scheme, ACCESS, provides capital funding for arts and culture projects throughout the country. All the funds under this scheme are fully allocated at present. My Department is currently examining a successor to ACCESS and I hope to make a decision in that regard in due course.

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.

Deadlines for the programme are not fixed but, for example, the 2005 programme applications for funding were invited through advertisements in the national press on 5 and 6 December 2004 and the deadline for receipt of applications was Friday 4 February 2005. I announced provisional grant allocations of €54.385 million under the 2005 programme last July.

I intend to invite applications to the 2006 programme shortly and the deadline for receipt of applications will be advertised at that time.

The local authority swimming pool programme, which is also administered by my Department, provides grant aid towards the capital costs of a new 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 current round of the pool programme was closed to applications on 31 July 2000 and the priority within the programme is to support the 55 projects that applied for funding prior to the closing date.

The Arts Council, the Irish Sports Council and Fáilte Ireland provide a range of grant programmes, details of which are available of their websites, at www.artscouncil.ie, www.irishsportscouncil.ie, and www.failteireland.ie, respectively.