I propose to take Questions Nos. 278 to 280, inclusive, together.
The national lottery funded sports capital programme allocates funding to sporting and community organisations at local, regional and national level throughout the country. It is advertised on an annual basis. A review was completed at the end of 1998. Since then applications for funding each year have been evaluated against detailed assessment criteria published in the guidelines, terms and conditions.
The 2002 sports capital programme was administered by the then Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation. The initial assessment of applications received was based on an assumed commitment availability of about €57.5 million which was the value of recommendations made. Subsequently additional funding of €17.3 million was made available. It was reallocated to other projects on the basis of an assessment of factors such as the contribution to local community development, support for minority sports and the strength of local support. The initial assessment recommended funding for 625 projects. As many as 859 projects were approved and included all of the projects recommended in the initial assessment.
None of the projects awarded provisional grant allocations under the programme may access any of the funding until they demonstrate compliance with the terms and conditions communicated to them by the Department. The conditions include compliance with public tendering processes, legal and tax clearance requirements and the submission of invoices in respect of completed work on the project.
The dates for the 2002 sports capital programme were brought forward specifically to facilitate the early announcement of financial allocations. This was done to give the grantees a better opportunity for speedier progress with their projects particularly during the summer months. I shall also explain it in my reply to Question No. 282.