Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The first Large Scale Sport Infrastrure Fund (LSSIF) allocations were announced just prior to the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic gave rise to 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 light 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, a majority of the 33 projects should be in a position to draw down funding in the next 12 months.

Following engagement with the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform and in recognition of challenges, such as construction inflation, officials in my Department wrote to all LSSIF grantees inviting them to apply for additional support by 4 August. To be considered for additional funding, grantees were advised that the key elements of the project should remain as set out in the original application and that priority would be given to those who provide evidence-based documentation to support their application.

I can confirm that the project referenced has applied for additional support and Minister Martin and I hope to be in a position to confirm further support to grantees in the coming period to ensure that all existing LSSIF projects are advanced.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, 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 €1.15 billion. The Programme for Government commits to continuing the SCEP and to prioritising investment in disadvantaged areas.

The latest round of the SCEP (2023) closed for applications on Friday 8 September. A preliminary examination of the submitted applications demonstrates that the Programme has again generated a large number of applications, including one from the organisation to which the Deputy refers, and it is evident that the total number will exceed the previous record of 3,106 applications submitted under the last (2020) round.

Work is now underway on finalising the "Scoring Assessment and Assessment Manual" for the 2023 round and I hope to have this published shortly. Simultaneously, I also plan to publish the full list of all applications received by county including the relevant sport type for each application received. Once these documents are published, the detailed assessment work can commence. In this regard, it is planned to assess the "equipment-only" applications first and announce these grants in the coming months. Work will then commence on assessing the capital applications with the allocations likely to be announced later in 2024.

In relation to the management of existing grants and the processing of payment requests, the Department will continue to facilitate the payments of grant claims up to year-end.