Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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322. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht when her Department will issue decisions in respect of applications under strand B of the cultural capital scheme 2020 (details supplied). [44335/20]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Assessment and final decision on applications under Streams A & B of the Cultural Capital Scheme 2019-2022 were delayed and put on hold as a result of COVID -19 and to enable my Department to set up and open Stream D, a further stream of funding under this overall Scheme. Stream D is specifically for capital adaptations or equipment necessary to assist arts and culture organisations in re-opening.

The ongoing priority is the administration of Stream D. On receipt of applications under this stream, my officials examine each of these in a more accelerated manner to achieve a quick turnaround.Final decisions and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are issued as quickly as possible so that the organisations can complete necessary works now to enable them re-open safely. I am glad to report that to date almost 80 organisations have been awarded funding of over €550,000 under Stream D including many of the organisations that applied under Streams A & B.

I have, today, announced funding of over €250,000 to the successful applications under Streams A & B of the cultural capital scheme. All of the organisations that applied in January that met the requirements of the scheme have been awarded grants today and details of these allocations are available here .

As the schemes were undersubscribed, organisations that made incomplete applications in January were given another chance to complete the process by providing missing documentation to my Department. Some organisations took advantage of this second opportunity and provided further details in August 2020. The assessments of the resubmitted applications under Streams A & B are ongoing and I hope to announce decisions on these organisations in the coming months.