Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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135. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the status of the large scale sport infrastructure fund; if grants approved earlier in 2020 still stand; if the commitment of at least €100 million made as part of Project Ireland 2040 still holds; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29438/20]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The LSSIF was launched in 2018 to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects including swimming pools with at least €100m being made available over the period to 2027. Provisional allocations totalling €77.4m for 25 projects under Stream 2 (construction) of the LSSIF were announced on 10 January 2020. On 13th January additional provisional allocations of €5m for a further 7 projects under Stream 1 (design) of the LSSIF were announced. All of these grants remain valid.

The evaluation procedures and guidelines for the LSSIF provide that once provisional allocations are announced, the successful projects will undergo a further process of due diligence. This process includes a further review of projects including economic appraisals and feasibility studies as appropriate to comply with the Public Spending Code. This work is continuing and the priority in the short term is on advancing the projects allocated funding in January. While it is not proposed to open the LSSIF for new applications at present, it is planned to review progress on existing grants in 2021 when the question of whether or not it would be appropriate to seek new applications will be considered.