Vol. 550 No. 4
573 Mr. Crawford asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage Gaeltacht and the Islands if she has received an application for a new theatre in Monaghan town; if so, if her attention has been drawn to the urgent need for the funding of same due to the long and positive record from the Garage Theatre in the town; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8976/02]
An application was submitted by the Garage Theatre in Monaghan for ACCESS funding to build a new theatre and arts centre. All eligible applications were evaluated by an independent committee established by me for that purpose. As the application in question was not among those recommended to me by the committee, it was not successful. Only applications recommended by the independent committee were considered by me for the purposes of grant allocations.
Total funds available for ACCESS come to €45.7 million, while applications were received for grant aid totalling €284.42 million. Difficult decisions therefore had to be made, with many worthwhile projects having to be refused. Officials from my Department met recently representatives from the Garage Theatre. However, the funding available to the ACCESS scheme is already fully allocated to 2004.
