Vol. 787 No. 5
8. Deputy Sandra McLellan asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide a detailed breakdown in terms of amount received, location, and names of the clubs in disadvantaged areas who received funding in the 2012 round of the sports capital programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57257/12]
12. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when the next round of funding will be available under the sports capital programme; the amount to be allocated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57263/12]
19. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide details of the clubs and organisations who do not own their own land and or do not have a long term lease who received funding in the first round of the sports capital programme 2012; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57258/12]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 8, 12 and 19 together.
I am glad to report that €10.2 million or almost 40% of the value of recent local sports capital allocations was allocated to projects located in designated disadvantaged areas. I will supply the Deputy with a list of all of the allocations to projects in disadvantaged areas. There are no plans for another round of the sports capital programme at the moment but I hope that, if funding becomes available, it will be possible to do so in the future. Decisions on the features of that programme and the amount to be allocated will be considered in the context of the prevailing budgetary framework.
I do not have a list of allocations to clubs and organisation that do not own or have a long lease on the property they use and the creation of such a list would involve a disproportionate amount of time. However, I can confirm that clubs or organisations that did not own their land or did not have a long lease were able to apply for a modest capital grant of up to €25,000 to upgrade facilities this year. This is the first time the programme has been extended to such groups. In addition, applicants that were only seeking funding for sports equipment did not need to demonstrate evidence of title.
I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I hope he will push hard for a second round of sports capital grants because a figure cannot be put on the value of them in the context of people's physical and mental well-being, the fight against obesity and even job creation. Research shows employed people are 50% more likely to participate in sport than those who are unemployed and, with regard to social disadvantage, there is a clear link between educational attainment and participation in sport. For example, those with a third level education are 3.2 times more likely to participate in sport than those with primary education only according to research in 2009. Prisoners in Ireland are 25 times more likely to come from and return to a seriously deprived area. Given almost 450,000 people are out of work and thousands of others are underemployed, it is imperative that the issue of equity is placed centre stage when funding is allocated for sports projects. Moreover, there is a close link between sporting activity and good mental health and between obesity, poor diet and disadvantage. Will the Minister of State give an undertaking to embark on an information campaign regarding the sports capital programme targeted at clubs and organisations that work with disadvantaged people and in disadvantaged areas? A total of €4 million remains to be allocated for regional and national projects. Will he confirm whether any boxing clubs will benefit at regional or national level considering the fantastic performances of their boxers at the Olympic Games?
I hope we can negotiate with the Department of Finance regarding another round of funding under the programme and I ask for the support of all sides in the House in this regard. When I came home from the Olympics, I got into some difficulty when what I was said was misinterpreted. I simply made the point that money spent on sport means the State will save money. It is estimated that 250,000 people could develop diabetes over the next ten years. If we have a healthier and fitter society, we will not need as many doctors, nurses and hospitals.
With regard to boxing and disadvantaged areas, 40% of allocations went to disadvantaged areas. In Dublin, I had more money than I needed. Given that more than 50% of projects in Dublin were marked invalid, we had enough money to accommodate every club that submitted a valid application. That did not happen in every other county so that I was not able to target more disadvantaged areas. The figure of 40% is the highest since the scheme began. This is an achievement because the whole point of the scheme is to target areas of disadvantage. I think we have succeeded in that.
The Deputy is correct in what she says about boxing. Last year when I came into office, and before the Olympic Games, I identified boxing as doing great work. Boxing clubs take in people from all sections of society, train them and look after them, and put great discipline into them. Before the Olympic Games, I put €1.2 million in place. The Irish Amateur Boxing Association distributes that money on my behalf. Boxing clubs do not have as many volunteer members as football or rugby clubs. Those who are there are busy training and working with young boxers and do not have the time to make applications to the sports capital programmes, county councils or whatever. The Irish Amateur Boxing Association targets clubs all over the country.
The two best things I spent money on since I became Minister of State are swimming pools and boxing clubs. I introduced a scheme to make it cheaper for pools to be run, and it has worked very well for local authorities. Deputy McLellan asked a straight question and I will give her a straight answer. I am going to do something for boxing in the new year. I have secured the money for a scheme for boxing, particularly because it did so well in the Olympic Games and our boxers did the country proud. Earlier today, I attended an event where Katie Taylor was named Irish Times Sportswoman of the Year. She has been a great ambassador. All our Olympic boxers did the country proud in London. They lifted the morale of the country. That is why I am targeting boxing again this year. They deserve it.
I am delighted to hear that. I had the honour of watching Katie Taylor box on a couple of occasions. Her award is well deserved. She gave the country such a lift in the summer.
Wexford received €900,000 in capital sports grants. Given the money the Minister of State had at his disposal, that was fair enough. However, there is serious concern in Wexford, particularly among the soccer fraternity but also among the public in general, that the distribution of the money appears to lack fairness. There is a feeling in Wexford that there may have been political interference, which is something we hoped we had left behind us.
Soccer is probably the biggest sport in the county and we got €40,000 out of the total allocation, which is less than 5%. Applications were submitted by 18 clubs and by the football league itself but only three clubs received funding of €40,000 between them. This does not look balanced and there are some very disgruntled people in the county. The notion that there may have been political interference is a bit frightening.
If more funding becomes available in the next 12 months, I ask the Minister of State to consider the soccer clubs in a favourable manner. I realise that some clubs' applications were rejected for one reason or another. I have looked at some of the refusals. It appeared to me that one could refuse any application if one wanted to do so. The application rules are tight and it is difficult to meet the criteria. It was almost impossible to submit an application that was 100% perfect.
The Minister of State knows what I am saying.
I do.
The first thing I did was to look at the scheme for the previous ten years and at areas that had done very well. I looked at areas that had done more than well, and I will not be political about that. On this occasion, I looked at areas that had done badly and I increased their funding by 20%. They were places like Carlow, Wicklow and other smaller counties. I left Leitrim alone because it has a small population and a small base of money. I did this on a per capita basis.
The Deputy is correct. Wexford got what it was entitled to get. Everyone was waiting to see if I would give Mayo one and a half times what I gave everywhere else. I did not. I gave clubs in Mayo, to the penny, what they were entitled to get, and I got into difficulty because of it. This week, the local paper in County Mayo is criticising me because I did not support this or that club. I could not satisfy everybody. I had €270 million worth of applications and €25 million to give out. I did it as fairly as I could.
We need to support and help clubs to understand the application rules. This does not just apply to ordinary people. I have had applications from professional people, such as solicitors, who still do not know the rules, or do not read them. If a club is applying for a State grant the State must get a charge on the club's property, and that property must be registered. Solicitors were sending the Department leases of six months, a year or five years. This time, for the first time, I said clubs that were applying for grants of €25,000 or less need not take a charge against a property. I allowed them to draw down funds without having their property registered. A grant of more than €25,000 is a major investment and in that case the State demands that the applicant submit a lease of 22 years plus one day. Solicitors continued to send leases of five or 15 years. Let me give an example. Applicants never had as much time to submit because I extended the closing date to 1 June, but one application came in with a lease that extended only to 15 July. It was already invalid by the time the application was sent. The solicitor then sent a new lease but it was for only 15 years. If he had read the guidelines he would have seen that the lease must be for 22 years and one day.
I did this as fairly as I could and distributed the money as equally as I could. I tried to look at every county and balance urban and rural, soccer, Gaelic and other sports. Deputy Wallace sent me information about applications from County Wexford. They were invalid. In my own town of Westport, there is a soccer and a Gaelic club. The application from the Gaelic club was invalid, and I was criticised over that. I took no club out that was invalid. I asked the Department not to send me applications that were invalid. When one has a limited amount of money one cannot satisfy everyone.
Deputy Wallace is involved in football and in sport. We have tried to provide facilities for young boys and girls for the future.
I cannot see how the newspapers in Mayo could be at all critical of the Minister of State. I know he has been very fair.
The sports capital grants are important for communities and Dublin is grateful for what it has got. Clubs such as boxing clubs that are trying to develop in the city are working at a disadvantage. A number of grants are often required to create that infrastructure. I am delighted to see funding going to rural areas and I do not, for a second, say it should be reduced. Social infrastructure in rural areas gets €52 million through the Leader fund. All other avenues of funding for urban areas, including Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin, have been closed down. In the past, when we wanted to develop a boxing club or a community centre with sporting facilities we applied to the sports capital programme, the dormant accounts fund and several other schemes. All those areas have been closed off. Rural areas have access to the €52 million Leader funding, and this is welcome.
Can the Minister of State and his colleagues look at ways to fund deprived urban areas across the country, because we are losing out? The social infrastructure is falling into bad repair. We need to open up the funding that was closed off, and I understand why, by the previous Government. We must look again at the dormant accounts fund and other social funds that were there previously to allow urban Ireland to get back on its feet again.
Deputy Humphreys is correct. I am pleased to have been able to help disadvantaged areas this time. I could have spent more money in Dublin but for the situation I have outlined.
The Deputy is speaking my language. It greatly annoys me that every other Department wants to have responsibility for sport. Funding is scattered through the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Health and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. I agree with the Deputy and I have been complaining about this since I entered office. All of that funding should be allocated to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, which should only deal with sport and nothing else. It is ludicrous that sport is dealt with in the other Departments. If it was all allocated through the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, we could target isolation, rural and urban areas and establish more schemes.
We must put more money into sport; it is money that is well spent. This was the first scheme since 2008 and it was a great achievement to get it up and running. I hope we can continue with this next year. Even if we do not have the money we had this year, if we have €20 million next year, it would be great to open it again. Those clubs that did not get any funding this time are at least validated but the clubs that were not validated should now get themselves validated, and get back into this. Four years was too long to leave clubs unable to make an application.
The Deputy is right about the divide between rural and urban areas. In Dublin, the local authorities provide a lot of facilities. In rural Ireland, that does not happen. I do not care; I like to see sporting facilities everywhere. We are far better investing money in sport than spending the much greater amount of money needed to keep a prisoner in jail. We are better off investing in boxing, which helps in the fight against antisocial behaviour.
I thank the volunteers because it is them who keep sport alive. They collect the money, train the young people and do the work and we do not thank them enough. We are bloody lucky in this country that we have so many volunteers who are prepared to give their time to support young people.
I recognise the Minister of State has noted the fairness and equity with which the funding was distributed on a county by county basis. He is right; if we follow the per capita model, it is covered. There is a concern about the criteria that are used within a county. There was €900,000 for Wexford and about the same for Clare. Some clubs that got nothing would feel their project was as good as the one that got €80,000 or another that got €40,000. At the end of the day someone must make a judgment call. Some clubs were annoyed that information seemed to be circulating days in advance. It was felt some clubs were being softened up, being told they would not make the grade, while others were told it was looking good. I know how politics works on the ground, some of it is based on the fly or on a hunch, while some is based on having a little information. Perhaps the Minister of State would reflect on the criteria used in terms of how the wash was moved from east to west and north to south.
We are all political animals, let us not pretend we are not. One of Deputy Dooley's colleagues did something very simple. He looked at the website, picked every club in his area and wrote to me about each of them, making representations. He was going to get something right and hit the jackpot. In a county like Mayo, where there are €18.5 million worth of projects, there would always be people who would be disappointed. People would claim that Government Deputies did better. In Mayo, four out of five Deputies are from Fine Gael and even then they were not satisfied.
I did the best I could. We were never going to get it right. Deputy Wallace was correct; there would always be disappointed people and others who got a grant. I could ask Deputy Dooley which projects in Clare he thinks should not have got money.
9. Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if CIE has received the €36 million subvention announced in July 2012; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57230/12]
On 24 July, the Government decided to provide additional PSO funding of €36 million to CIE to ensure that the company could continue to operate for the rest of 2012. This would bring the total PSO subvention for this year to €278 million, higher than the subvention level for 2010, and the fifth highest level of subvention ever. In November, €16 million of the additional subvention was paid by the National Transport Authority to CIE and the remaining allocation of €20 million was paid by the NTA to CIE last week.
While that ties in with my earlier points, this is really about the provision that has been made for last year in light of the €36 million that was needed this year. I accept the legislation was passed this week that will provide CIE with the capacity to borrow to a greater extent, and that will be helpful, but there is still real concern in Fianna Fáil and among the workers and those who use CIE services that in a deteriorating financial environment, the consumer will be hit on the double with increased ticket prices and reduced services, thereby further diminishing the quality of the network.
There is no doubt that 2013 will be a tough year for CIE. A certain level of funding is available and the Department must find the funding for the coming years. We have put in place a three year programme and next year CIE will receive €226 million. We are working closely with the company to ensure it can provide the services with that subvention in 2013. There are cost cutting measures across all of the CIE subsidiary companies. Irish Rail has already agreed to a number of cost cutting measures, while Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are in negotiations at the moment. There are issues for Bus Éireann and the Department is watching that closely. I thank everyone in the Houses for the speedy passage of the CIE borrowings legislation that will allow us to increase its borrowing limit, which is necessary given the current environment.
It would be wrong not to say to everyone in the House with an interest in transport that 2013 will be a challenging year when it comes to CIE and its subsidiaries. We are working closely as a Department with the board of CIE and the chief executives of the three subsidiaries to ensure we can get through 2013 and get more passengers and cut costs, while looking at what other measures are possible to sustain the services we all need.
Different people have different views on the importance of public transport. There is now significant competition in the market with the issuing of licences to some of the private bus operators between certain centres of population. That is putting significant pressure on CIE. As a Labour Party man, is the Minister of State satisfied that the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport is as committed to public transport as he is?
It is certainly Christmas time in here, that question was teed up. The Government is committed to public transport and I assure the Deputy that I work very closely with Deputy Varadkar on the issues he has raised.
We all know 2013 will be a challenging year but we are working with everyone every day to maintain services and ensure they are delivered in a satisfactory manner. The push needs to be to improve the customer experience to get more people to use the services. The additional use of RTPI and Wi-Fi helps to create a better customer experience for everyone using the services, which is crucially important. Measures will be continually undertaken to achieve that.
There needs to be improvement in the commercial angle of CIE and how the individual three subsidiary companies commercially exploit their services. I have worked very closely indeed with CIE and its subsidiaries, even up until recently, to ensure that in 2013 there will be considerable changes and focus from the companies to ensure they commercially exploit their excellent facilities and services. Deputies should note, for instance, that Irish Rail has new offerings on its services across the country where those who book early get a concession. It is this kind of thing we need to promote in order to ensure more people use public transport.
I thank the Deputies for their questions, to the Ministers of State for their replies and to the staff for assisting us in the debate here this evening. I wish the Members a happy Christmas and a happy new year.
Written answers follow Adjournment.
