Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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568. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if an application for funding has been received as part of the sports capital programme (details supplied) for shared playing and recreational facilities in County Donegal; if his attention has been drawn to the merits of the application; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53230/18]

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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The 2018 round of the Sports Capital Programme opened for applications on Friday 7 September and the application period closed on Friday 19th October. By that deadline, a record 2,337 applications were submitted seeking a total of €162m in funding.

I can confirm that an application has been submitted by the organisation referred to by the Deputy. The sharing of sports facilities is a stated objective of the Sports Capital Programme and any applicant that provides evidence of sharing of facilities, by way of a licence agreement between the local sports groups and/or schools, will receive extra marks at assessment stage.

For the first time, applicants who have submitted incorrect documentation under this round will be given the opportunity to correct their application during the assessment period. While there will be no undue delay in completing the assessment process, in view of the opportunity to correct documentation, the record number of applications received and the detailed information contained in each application, it is likely to take a number of months to have all applications assessed. Accordingly, I expect that it will be at least the second quarter of next year before the full set of allocations under this current round of the programme are announced.