Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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287. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the status of an application by Cork County Council in partnership with a club (details supplied). [29135/21]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The National Sports Policy published in 2018 provided for the establishment of a Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF). The National Development Plan provided a capital allocation of at least €100m over the period to 2027 for the fund. The aim of the scheme is to provide exchequer support for larger sports facility projects with at least €100m being made available over the period to 2027.

The first call for proposals under the fund closed for applications on 17^thApril 2019.  Following a detailed assessment process approximately €86.4m has been awarded to 33 proposals and the priority in the short term is on advancing these projects.

An application was received from Cork County Council in respect of the project referred to by the Deputy but did not score sufficiently highly to be awarded a grant and the applicants were notified at the time. The total funding applied for under the scheme significantly exceeded the amount available to allocate. All applications under the LSSIF were assessed in accordance with the published scoring criteria with scores were awarded based on factors such as the priority given to the project by the relevant NGB and/or local authority, the level of funding being provided by the project sponsor and the likelihood of increasing sports participation.

All unsuccessful applicants were given the opportunity to appeal the Department’s decision if it was felt that an error was made in the assessment process. No appeal was received in respect of the project referred to by the Deputy. 

It should be noted that a review of progress on the existing LSSIF grants is now underway. As part of this work the Department will be examining, inter alia, progress on all projects awarded funding to date. The scope for awarding new grants to projects which missed out under the first set of allocations will also be considered. This review is expected to be complete in the coming months.