Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 331: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism when funding will be provided for a theatre (details supplied) in County Monaghan; his views on whether this is an important cross border area and that this project which failed to receive funding under Access II is an important issue in underwriting the Peace Process; when or the way this group might receive funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21845/07]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides capital grant support to arts projects through the Arts & Culture Capital Enhancement Support (ACCESS) Scheme. Under the present ACCESS Scheme, 156 applications were received by the closing date of November 2006. In April 2007, 67 of these were selected for funding. Applications for grant aid of €213m in total were received. The amount of funding available was €32m and, as a result difficult decisions had to be made and many worthwhile projects, including this one, were not selected on this occasion.

All the funds under the current round of the scheme have now been fully allocated. Funding of some €81m is available for ACCESS under the NDP 2007 — 2013 and I would expect a further round of funding to be announced in due course.

I am fully aware of the importance of this project to people living in the Monaghan and border areas. My officials will be meeting shortly with representatives from the Monaghan project to discuss the project in greater detail. The application has been kept open and will be reconsidered should further funds become available or should one of the successful projects not go ahead.