Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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627. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the points system used in deciding on sports capital grants schemes and the placing on the list of successful-unsuccessful applicants; the rationale behind this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4562/15]

Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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All applications received under the 2014 Sports Capital Programme were assessed by officials in the Department.  Every application was assessed by one official and reviewed by another official.

Applications were first checked to ensure eligibility and eligible applications were then initially scored by officials against five criteria:

1Likelihood of increasing participation and/or improving performance and sharing of facilities

2Level of socio-economic disadvantage in the area

3Technical merits of the project

4Level of own funding available

5Level of Sports Capital Programme funding received in the past.

These criteria were designed to give higher scores to applications that will increase participation, where facilities will be shared, that were from designated disadvantaged areas, that had not received substantial funding in the past and that were ready to be progressed as soon as possible.

In deciding the final allocations of funding to projects within each county Minister Varadkar and I had regard to a number of factors, including:

-The performance of each application during the assessment process;

-Ensuring a geographical spread of projects within each county;

-Ensuring an appropriate spread of projects between rural and urban areas within each county; and

-Ensuring that there was a spread of projects among different sports.