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 with the first allocations announced in January 2020. Details of all grant allocations are available on my Department’s website at: www.gov.ie/en/service/4113b3-large-scale-sport-infrastructure-fund-lssif/

An application was received from Clare GAA for Stream 2 (construction) funding towards a new all-weather synthetic playing pitch at the Clare GAA Centre of Excellence. A total of €1,161,129.84 was sought in the application. Unfortunately, the total funding applied for by all applicants under the scheme significantly exceeded the funding available to allocate and the Clare GAA project did not score sufficiently highly to be awarded a grant.

All unsuccessful applicants were given the opportunity to appeal the Department’s decision if it was felt than an error was made in the assessment process and an appeal was received from Clare GAA. All appeals were assessed by officials who were not involved in the initial assessment process and no errors were found which warranted an automatic grant.

It is important to emphasise that the LSSIF is a relatively new scheme with only one call for proposals to date. 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. The review is expected to be finalised soon and any issues identified will be addressed as part of the terms and conditions of the next call.

In relation to a new round of the LSSIF, Minister Martin and I will continue to engage with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform, in relation to the additional funding required and the timing and terms and conditions of any new round of the LSSIF will be announced in due course.