Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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199. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when grant aid under the sports capital programme 2017 will be announced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49508/17]

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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The 2017 round of the Sports Capital Programme closed for applications on the 24th February. By the closing date, a record number of 2,320 applications seeking €155 million in grants were received. 

When the programme was launched, it was envisaged that €30m would be available which would have made the allocation of grants particularly challenging. Following the conclusion of the budget discussions and in order to allow as many worthwhile projects as possible to receive some funding, I am pleased that significant extra resources have been secured to allocate under this round.

The assessment of all the 2,320 applications is now nearing completion and I expect to be in a position to announce full details of the allocations in the coming weeks.