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 aim of the LSSIF is to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects where the Exchequer investment would be greater than the maximum amount available under the Sports Capital and Equipment Programme (SCEP).

The first call for proposals under the LSSIF closed in 2019 with applications confined to Local Authorities and National Governing Bodies of Sport. New swimming pool projects and the refurbishment of existing swimming pools were eligible to apply for LSSIF grant funding subject to published guidelines and regulations. All applications were assessed in accordance with the published Evaluation Procedures and Guidelines with the first allocations announced in January 2020.

An application was received from Kildare County Council for design funding towards a new swimming pool in Maynooth with €1 million sought. The total funding applied for under the scheme significantly exceeded the amount available to allocate and the swimming pool project in Maynooth did not score sufficiently highly to be awarded a grant.

Minister Martin and I recently confirmed that a new round of LSSIF will open for applications in the first half of 2024, with the dates, terms and conditions to be published on the Department’s website in due course. I would encourage all eligible projects to consider applying for this competitive application process when it opens in the first half of 2024.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Sports Capital and Equipment Programme (SCEP) has transformed the sporting landscape of Ireland with improvements in the quality and quantity of sporting facilities in virtually every village, town and city in 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 the investment in disadvantaged areas.

After each round of the Programme, a review is undertaken to identify any changes required to further improve the scheme. The 2020 Review was published earlier this year and provides a comprehensive look at all aspects of the 2020 round, including statistical data on how the funding was allocated.

Among the recommendations contained in the Review was a continued prioritisation of projects that share facilities with other sports and further enhanced investment in areas of disadvantage. The Review also identified new areas for focus including, inter alia, the need to prioritise applications from areas witnessing significant population growth. The level of existing facilities in an area will continue to be a factor when scoring applications under the 2023 round with areas lacking in sufficient sports facilities being prioritised.

Those areas of focus were reflected in the published Guide to Making an Application for the 2023 round. Work is now underway on finalising the "Scoring System 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.