Written answers

Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport

Sports Capital Programme

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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277. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to outline the degree to which he proposes to deploy the capital sports grants throughout the country to ensure a high quality and standard of facilities in all areas within reason in keeping with demographics and the demands of a growing population; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6391/17]

Photo of Patrick O'DonovanPatrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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The Sports Capital Programme (SCP) is the Government's primary vehicle to support the development of sports facilities and the purchase of sports equipment. The Programme aims to foster an integrated and planned approach to developing sports and physical recreation facilities throughout the country. In particular, its stated objectives are to:

- Assist voluntary and community organisations, national governing bodies (NGBs) of sport, local authorities and Education and Training Boards and schools to develop high quality, accessible, well-designed facilities in appropriate locations and to provide appropriate equipment to help maximise participation in sport and physical recreation.

- Prioritise the needs of disadvantaged areas in the provision of sports facilities.

- Encourage the sharing of local, regional and national sports facilities by clubs, community organisations and national governing bodies of sport.

The 2017 round of the programme is open for applications until 24th February, 2017. 

In terms of how grants are subsequently allocated, while the precise assessment criteria and scoring system for the 2017 Sports Capital Programme are currently being finalised, I do not envisage that the scoring and weighting system will change significantly from previous rounds of the Programme. In this regard, the distribution of the overall funding to each county will be considered on a per capita basis. Individual applications will first be checked to ensure eligibility and eligible applications will then be initially scored according to criteria designed to give higher scores to applications that will increase participation, that are from designated disadvantaged areas and had not received substantial funding in the past. The assessment process will not commence prior to the closing date for applications on the 24th of February and the scoring system will be finalised before then and published thereafter.

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