Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 December 2023
311. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media the extent to which she continues to support the application for a swimming pool in Maynooth, County Kildare, to cater for the surrounding area as well as a student population of 17,000 and the need to avail of the offers available from Kildare County Council and Maynooth College; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [56249/23]
View answerThe National Sports Policy, which was published in 2018, provided for the establishment of a Large Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF). The aim of the LSSIF is to provide Exchequer support for larger sports facility projects where the Exchequer investment would be greater than the maximum amount available under the Sports Capital and Equipment Programme (SCEP).
The first call for proposals under the LSSIF closed in 2019 with applications confined to Local Authorities and National Governing Bodies of Sport. New swimming pool projects and the refurbishment of existing swimming pools were eligible to apply for LSSIF grant funding subject to published guidelines and regulations. All applications were assessed in accordance with the published Evaluation Procedures and Guidelines with the first allocations announced in January 2020.
An application was received from Kildare County Council for design funding towards a new swimming pool in Maynooth with €1 million sought. The total funding applied for under the scheme significantly exceeded the amount available to allocate and the swimming pool project in Maynooth did not score sufficiently highly to be awarded a grant.
Minister Martin and I recently confirmed that a new round of LSSIF will open for applications in the first half of 2024, with the dates, terms and conditions to be published on the Department’s website in due course. I would encourage all eligible projects to consider applying for this competitive application process when it opens in the first half of 2024.
