Written answers

Thursday, 5 May 2022

Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht

Defibrillators Provision

Photo of Jackie CahillJackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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146. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the best source of public funding that a community group could apply for in order to purchase a defibrillator for a local community; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22399/22]

Photo of Jack ChambersJack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The procurement of defibrillators is a matter for each community group in the first instance. However, the State provides a number of supports for their purchase and training for their use.

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.  Grants are available for a wide variety of capital works and non-personal sports equipment including first aid kits and defibrillators.

The 2020 round of the SCEP closed for applications on Monday 1 March 2021 and by the deadline a record 3,100 applications were submitted.  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.

The remaining capital applications were then assessed and 1,865 individual grant offers with a total value of over €143.8 million were announced on Friday 11 February 2022. This represented the highest level of allocation ever made under the SCEP. My Department is currently finalising the assessment of appeals from unsuccessful applicants. Once the appeal process is complete, a full review of the 2020 round of the SCEP will be undertaken. The precise timing of the next round of the Programme will be announced once this review is complete. 

Defibrillators situated at sports clubs are generally also for community use and I understand that funding is also available through the HSE’s National Lottery grants schemes and other Community grants schemes.

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