All applications received under the 2014 Sports Capital Programme were assessed by officials in the Department. Every application was assessed by one official and reviewed by another official.
Applications were first checked to ensure eligibility and eligible applications were then initially scored by officials against five criteria:
1 Likelihood of increasing participation and/or improving performance and sharing of facilities
2 Level of socio-economic disadvantage in the area
3 Technical merits of the project
4 Level of own funding available
5 Level of Sports Capital Programme funding received in the past.
These criteria were designed to give higher scores to applications that will increase participation, where facilities will be shared, that were from designated disadvantaged areas, that had not received substantial funding in the past and that were ready to be progressed as soon as possible.
427 projects with a score of 44 or lower at initial assessment were allocated funding. The lowest scoring project at initial assessment that was allocated a grant was 10.
In deciding the final allocations of funding to projects within each country Minister Varadkar and I had regard to a number of factors, including:
- The performance of each application during the assessment process
- Ensuring a geographical spread of projects within each county
- Ensuring an appropriate spread of projects between rural and urban areas within each county and
- Ensuring that there was a spread of projects among different sports.
