Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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Question 17: To ask the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport his plans to change the sports capital programme and the local swimming pool programme. [6188/11]

Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Question 19: To ask the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport his plans to provide age appropriate sports and recreational facilities in different types of population centres. [6190/11]

Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North-West Limerick, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 17 and 19 together.

Under the terms of the Sports Capital Programme grants are allocated to sporting organisations towards the provision of new facilities, the renovation/extension of existing facilities or the purchase of non-personal sports equipment. Since 1998, almost €740 million has been allocated to over 7,400 projects nationwide. No decision has been made on the timing of the next round of the Sports Capital Programme. While no new call for applications for funding has been made since 2008 a provision of €33m has been provided in this year's estimates to cover the payment of grants previously allocated.

The Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme is administered by my Department. The programme provides grant aid towards the capital costs of new public swimming pools or the refurbishment of existing public swimming pools provided by local authorities themselves or by other bodies where the application for capital funding is supported by the local authority. The current round of the programme closed to new applicants in July 2000.

The programme provides for maximum grant aid of €3.8m per project. There are four principal stages which must be undertaken by a local authority in developing a swimming pool project. These are Preliminary Report (including Feasibility Study), Contract Documents, Tender stage and finally Construction stage. Local authorities may not proceed to the next stage of a project until prior approval issues from my Department. Grant aid is formally allocated when the tender is approved. My Department's technical advisers, the Office of Public Works (OPW), evaluate each stage.

The policy since 2000 has been to give priority to the completion of the 58 projects within the current round. Of these 58 projects, 46 have been completed and 12 others are at various stages in the programme. Cumulative grant expenditure by my Department under the programme from 2000 to date is €145.8m and this grant aid has leveraged total investment of some €406m in the 48 public swimming pools approved grant aid. The allocation of €6.65m in 2011 will be sufficient to meet commitments arising in 2011 under the current round of the Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme.

The Department has previously completed and published a Value for Money and Policy Review Report of the Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme. The report examined, among other things, how the programme has worked to date and what changes are required to ensure its effective and efficient delivery. The terms and conditions of any new round of the programme will be devised taking into account the recommendations of the report.