Vol. 577 No. 5
22 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the progress being made on the commitment in An Agreed Programme for Government to work with local authorities to provide at municipal level a range of public facilities such as swimming pools, gymnasia, and synthetic, floodlit playing pitches; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31556/03]
Under the national lottery-funded sports capital programme administered by my Department, funding is allocated to projects which provide sports and recreational facilities at local, regional and national level. While the majority of the funding allocated under the programme goes to voluntary and community groups, it is also open to local authorities to submit applications for funding. For example, under the 2003 programme grants to the value of €6.5 million were allocated to ten municipal projects – either directly to local authorities or to projects where the local authority was working in partnership with a sports club or a community organisation.
It has been a key objective of sport policy, particularly in the past three years, to support a number of multi-sport centres under the management and control of local authorities. Such projects must, like all others, comply with the terms and conditions of the sports capital programme. Examples of multi-sport centre projects allocated funding under the sports capital programme in recent years include those for Finglas, Ballymun, Monkstown and Ringsend in Dublin; Waterford City, Navan, Trim, Carlow, Letterkenny, Sligo, Ennis, Athlone, Ballina and Portlaoise. Of these, the Athlone sports centre, which includes a swimming pool, has been completed and is open to the public, while those for Ballymun, Finglas, Letterkenny and Portlaoise, apart from receiving grants through the sports capital programme, plan to include swimming pools as part of their overall sports complex and have applied for funding under the local authority swimming pool programme, which is also administered by my Department, to that end.
The 2004 sports capital programme was advertised in the national press on Sunday, 30 November 2003 and Monday, 1 December 2003. The closing date for receipt of completed applications is Friday 16 January, 2004. All applications received will be evaluated against the programme's assessment criteria, which are outlined in the guidelines, terms and conditions of the programme. Following this assessment process it is likely that further municipal projects may be selected for funding.
Under the local authority swimming pool programme the maximum grant available is €3.8 million, subject to the total grant not exceeding 80% of the eligible cost of the project or, in the case of projects located in designated disadvantaged areas, 90% of the eligible cost. Support is also available towards the cost of the swimming pool, toddler pool, sauna and steam room.
The provision in my Department's 2004 Estimates for the local authority swimming pool programme is €15 million, an increase of 67% on the estimate provision of €9 million for this year. Expenditure under the programme in 2002 was €3.9 million. It is expected that the total allocation of €9 million for this year will be fully utilised.
A total of 55 applications have or are being dealt with under the current round of the local authority swimming pool programme which commenced as of the end of July 2000. Of the 55 projects, 11 have been completed, four are under construction and 40 are at one of the three principal pre-construction stages of the approval process. Of these 40, five are at tender stage, 18 are at contract document stage and 17 are at the preliminary report stage.
This Government intends, as it committed to do in the Agreed Programme for Government, to put in place a long-term strategic plan to ensure the development of sports facilities throughout the country. The first step in this process has commenced with a review of the existing sports capital programme under the Department's expenditure review programme. The purpose of this review is to establish what has been achieved under this programme over recent years with a view to identifying gaps in the existing provision and procedures and setting priorities for the future. The expenditure review will be completed by the end of this year.
A similar review of the local authority swimming pool programme has recently commenced and the results of both will feed into the overall strategic plan for the provision of sports facilities.
Question No. 23 answered with Question No. 21.
Question No. 24 disallowed.
