Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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281. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will consider allocating a portion of the unspent €353,784 Covid-19 cultural support grants to fund or part-fund a unique festival (details supplied) which has been running festival since 2004. [6304/22]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Over €55.5m was paid out in grants in 2021 to the Live Performance Sector under a number of schemes including:

- Live Performance Support Scheme

- Events Sector Covid Support Scheme

- Music and Entertainment Business Assistance Scheme

- Commercial Entertainment Capital Grant Scheme

- Cultural Capital Scheme – stream D

A small number of grants totalling €353,784 (as per table below) under those schemes were not taken up or not fully drawn down, no grants were returned. Some applicants opted not to drawdown the grants offered, either partly or in full, for a variety of reasons related to their own circumstances. For example, under the LPSS, 6 applicants decided not to go ahead with the events as originally planned.

While €25m was allocated in funding for LPSS 2021, the final spend for this scheme is expected to be just over €25m and therefore no funding will be unspent.