Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 6 July 2006
334 Mr. Hayes asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism if there is co-operation between his Department and the Department of Education and Science to provide or enhance indoor sports facilities in schools; and if such cross-Departmental co-operation exists, the achievements to date. [27540/06]
View answerThe sports capital programme, which is administered by my Department, allocates funding to sporting and community organisations and, in certain circumstances, schools and colleges, throughout the country. Projects must be of a capital nature and be directly related to the provision of sporting and physical recreation facilities.
Applications to the programme from primary and post-primary schools and colleges must be made jointly with local sports clubs or community groups and must as a minimum demonstrate that the local community will have significant access to the proposed facility when it is not being used by the school or college itself. In this regard, the significant access is a requirement for a minimum of at least 30 hours a week throughout the year.
Under the 2006 sports capital programme, some 30 applications involving schools were received and following consultation with the Department of Education and Science, grants totalling €1.4 million have been allocated in respect of 12 of these projects. My Department has commenced work on the development of a sports facilities strategy that will advocate a planned approach to the provision of sports facilities at both local and national level. An inter-agency steering group has been established to oversee this work. It includes representation from the Department of Education & Science. One of the key areas being examined as part of this strategy is community access to school facilities. This relates to both optimising usage by local communities of existing school facilities outside school hours and how this Department might provide funding to planned sports halls in schools to enhance the facilities where necessary to facilitate a wide range of sports.
However there are clearly genuine concerns within schools relating to issues such as security, insurance and running costs which can be barriers to facilitating community access which will need to be addressed. Where schools benefit from funding to enhance their facilities on the basis of the wider benefit to the local community, there needs to be a mechanism to ensure that this access is provided and maintained into the future. It is expected that work on this strategy will be completed later this year.
