Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 October 2019
301. Deputy Peter Burke asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the status of an application for a sports capital grant by a club (details supplied) in County Westmeath; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40276/19]
View answerThe 2018 round of the Sports Capital Programme (SCP) closed for applications on Friday 19th October last. By that deadline, a record 2,337 applications were submitted seeking a total of €162m in funding.
186 of these applications were for projects that were deemed invalid under the 2017 round of the programme that subsequently submitted corrected documents. These applications were assessed first and approximately €7m in allocations to 170 projects were announced on the 17th January.
619 applications for sports equipment only were assessed next and 466 allocations with a value of €9.8m were announced to these organisations in May. The club referred to by the Deputy submitted an application for sports equipment under the 2018 SCP. Unfortunately, given the level of demand and the amount of funding available under the programme, it was not possible to allocate grants to every eligible applicant. In this regard, the club referred to did not receive a sufficiently high score at assessment stage at qualify for a grant on this occasion.
As soon as all allocations have been made under the current round, my Department will carry out a review of all aspects of the 2018 round of the programme to include any possible improvements for the future. This review will include consideration of the timing and scale of the next round and it will be open to the club in question to submit a new application for funding under this next round.
