Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The National Sports Policy, which was published in 2018, 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.

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 that were allocated grants and meetings with all grantees have taken place. It is encouraging that, based on these discussions with grantees, over half of the 33 projects should be in a position to draw down funding this year. While this progress is very welcome, these discussions also confirm that some projects in receipt of LSSIF grants may not proceed in the short to medium term. In view of this, Minister Martin and I are currently considering, and engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform in this context, whether additional resources could be provided to projects in need of further assistance and whether a new round of the LSSIF could be opened in due course.

I expect that my Department will be in further contact with existing grantees shortly and that the timing and terms and conditions of any new round of the LSSIF will be announced in due course.