Vol. 468 No. 4
284 Mr. O'Leary asked the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht the reason an application for an EU grant, plus a State grant, for the proposed development of an Arts, Cultural and Heritage Centre in Scartaglen, County Kerry, which is in the heart of the Sliabh Luachra district in north west Cork and east Kerry, was not placed on the priority list by his Department for grant aid; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15136/96]
I can confirm to the Deputy that an application was submitted to my Department for funding for this project under the Cultural Development Incentives Scheme which I am administering under the Operational Programme for Tourism. I should explain that some 170 applications were received by me for assistance under the first call for the CDIS, representing total funding demands of some £87 million. Since the total funds available to me under this first call was £14.7 million, the scheme was well over subscribed.
Based on the recommendations of the advisory committee which I appointed to assist in the evaluation process, I have recently made decisions on the selection of projects to be assisted from the applications received to date under the scheme.
The Deputy will appreciate that some very difficult decisions had to be made and that it simply was not possible for me to assist some worthwhile projects given the limited funding at my disposal. I regret that I was not able to include the Scartaglin project among the 24 projects to which assistance in principle has been offered under the scheme.
I should add, however, that it is intended to advertise this autumn for the submission of applications for the final stage of the CDIS, for which I expect to be able to allocate grant assistance of the order of £5 million towards successful projects. It will be open to project promoters to submit a new or revised application based upon the most up-to-date position pertaining in response to that advertisement.
