Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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197. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht when the large-scale sport infrastructure fund will be open for applications. [20593/23]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The National Sports Policy was published in 2018 and provided for the establishment of a Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF). The first call for proposals under the LSSIF closed in 2019 with applications confined to local authorities and National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of Sport. All applications were assessed in accordance with the published Evaluation Procedures and Guidelines and the first allocations were announced in January 2020. Thus far, approximately €86.4 million has been awarded to 33 different proposals.

It should be noted that the first LSSIF allocations were announced just prior to the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic obviously gave rise to significant financial challenges for all grantees with many of them having to reprioritise their own expenditure plans due to reductions in their income streams. In more recent times, the high level of construction inflation has also presented considerable challenges for grantees. In view of these issues, it was considered timely to review progress on all projects allocated grants and meetings with all grantees have taken place. It is encouraging that, based on these discussions with grantees, 21 of the 33 projects should be in a position to draw down funding this year. Accordingly, I expect to see significant progress on many of the LSSIF projects in the short term. As part of the Review, my Department is also considering the timing and funding requirements for any new call for proposals. The review work is at an advanced stage and is expected to be finalised shortly.