Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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306. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht when the sports capital grants will be announced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44214/21]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Sports Capital and Equipment Programme (SCEP) is the primary vehicle for Government support for the development of sports and physical recreation facilities and the purchase of non-personal sports equipment throughout the country. The 2020 round of the SCEP closed for applications on Monday 1st March 2021. By the closing date, over 3,100 applications were submitted seeking over €200m in funding. This is the highest number of applications ever received.

The scoring system and assessment procedures was published earlier this year and all applications are being assessed accordingly. Approximately one thousand of the submitted applications were for "equipment-only" projects. These applications were assessed first and grants to the value of €16.6m were announced on the 6th August.

The remaining applications for capital works are now being assessed. Given the large number of applications received, this work is likely to take a number of months to complete with allocations expected to be announced before the end of this year.