Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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54. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the extent to which all previous allocations under the sports capital programme continue to be fully utilised in accordance with the need to make provision under this heading as broadly as possible in line with requirements as expressed through expressions of interest or application over the past five years; if he expects to be in a position to facilitate further applications in the short to medium term; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22254/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Deputies will be aware that the Sports Capital Programme is the Government's primary vehicle to support the development of sports facilities and the purchase of sports equipment.

Deputies will also be aware that there was no round of the SCP in 2009, 2010 or 2011.  There were however rounds of the programme in 2012, 2014 and 2015.  Almost 1,600 applications were received under the 2015 round of the Programme, evidence of the ongoing importance of the Programme to clubs and communities.

 We give clubs every assistance to draw down their Sports Capital allocations.  However, the level of outstanding commitments and the length of time that some of these grants are outstanding is far from ideal.  Withdrawing grants is a labour intensive and time consuming process and it can take grantees several years to complete a project and drawdown a grant.  Due to resources constraints it has not been possible to operate an active grants withdrawal process in recent years.  In 2015 €467,000 was withdrawn from 22 projects. 

No decision has been taken on the timing of the next rounds of the SCP.  Work is however ongoing in relation to simplifying the online application process to make it more user friendly for applicants.