Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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277. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht when a new round of sport capital grant funding will open in 2022; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5988/22]

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 recreation facilities and the purchase of non-personal sports equipment throughout the country. Over 13,000 projects have now benefited from sports capital funding since 1998, bringing the total allocations in that time to over €1 billion.

On 30 November 2020, Minister Martin and I announced that a new round of the Programme was opening with at least €40 million available to allocate. The original closing date for applications was 12 February 2021 but, in view of difficulties some applicants were encountering as a result of Covid restrictions, this deadline was extended until 1 March 2021. By this closing date, 3,106 applications had been submitted seeking over €200m in funding. This is the highest number of applications ever received.

The scoring system and assessment procedures were finalised and published prior to assessment work commencing and all applications were assessed in accordance with these procedures.

Approximately one thousand of the submitted applications were for 'equipment-only' projects. These applications were assessed first and grants with a total value of €16.6m were announced on 6 August 2021.

In relation to the remaining capital SCEP applications, the assessment of all applications is now complete and I will be announcing individual grant allocations shortly. All unsuccessful applicants will be given the opportunity to appeal the Department’s decision and information in this regard will be issued when the grants are announced. An announcement in relation to the timing of the next round of the Programme will be made when the appeals process is complete.