Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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625. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to launch a new sports capital programme in 2018; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54063/17]

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, significant extra resources were secured to allocate under the round.

The allocations in respect of all local applications were announced on Thursday 30th November and full details of these allocations are available on my Department's website. The priority in the medium term will be on advancing these projects.  A decision on the timing of the next round of the programme will be taken next year and all clubs and sports organisations registered with my Department will be informed at the time.