Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 April 2004
472 Ms Harkin asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if, further to his reply of 13 January 2004, funding has been put in place to commence the NDP sport and recreational facilities sub-measure under the BMW operational programme. [12032/04]
View answerTo date, there has been no expenditure under the sports and recreational facilities sub-measure of the NDP's regional operational programme. The Deputy will be aware that the sub-measure was to be based on the outcome of the Government's national spatial strategy, which was approved in November 2002. No provision for expenditure on the sports and recreational facilities sub-measure was included in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism budget for 2003 or 2004 which would have enabled the introduction of a new programme.
Prior to the introduction of any such new programme, there are a number of other factors to be considered. Since 1998, grants to the value of €270 million have been allocated to 3,500 projects under the Department's sports capital programme, many of which are of the nature envisaged in the sub-measure. In addition, under the Department's local authority swimming pool programme, there is an ambitious programme which provides funding for local authorities towards pool provision.
In keeping with the commitment in the programme for Government, the development of a national sports facilities strategy will commence shortly and will be prepared in tandem with the national audit of sports facilities. The audit, which will provide the Department with a database of existing facilities, is viewed as critical to the effective delivery of a future sports facilities programme. A further factor to be considered is the capacity of local authorities to undertake additional borrowings within the context of the general Government balance.
In the context of the 2005 Estimates, the Department proposes to revisit this measure, taking into account the outcome of the strategy process, the national audit, the budgetary situation and the recommendations from a recently completed, but not yet publicly available, expenditure review on the sports capital programme.
