The Government was distributing festive goodies across the sporting spectrum yesterday adding additional funding through Sport Ireland in a number of areas to the major announcement on a three year funding deal for Gaelic Players Association payments.
The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross TD and the Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Patrick O’Donovan TD, stood shoulder to shoulder as they announced an increase of €1.775m in the amount agreed in the budget last September in funding for Sport Ireland for 2017.
The money will go towards three specific areas, the first being the provision of funding towards programmes for Women inter county players in Ladies Football and Camogie announced earlier this year.
The second will be to cover additional operational expenses incurred by the opening of the new National Indoor Arena at the National Sports Campus.
Read more about the National Indoor Arena
The third will be to cover the cost of employing additional Sport Development Officers through the local Sports partnership network across the country.
“I am delighted to be able to provide additional funding of €1.775m for Sport Ireland from within my Department’s existing budget,” said Minister Ross.
“I am committed to delivering an improved situation for Irish sport and this additional funding will enable Sport Ireland to deliver important new measures for sport next year.”
“This is an important increase in Sport Ireland’s budget for 2017, added Minister of State O’Donovan.
“It means that Sport Ireland can deliver on critical new initiatives in 2017 to support ladies football and camogie players, to develop sport at local level through the employment of Development Officers and to bring the National Indoor Arena into operation.”
The additional funding of €1.775m is being made available from within the Department’s existing budget and is being provided to allow Sport Ireland to meet those very specific commitments.
Read more about the funding commitment for Women’s Gaelic Players
In addition, a further €0.5m is being provided in 2017 for an increase in Dormant Accounts Funding for sports initiatives for disadvantaged communities as well as a further €0.7m provided in 2017 for an increase in grant funding to the Gaelic Players Association (GPA).
The additional money does represent an increase on the base line funding for sport from the current year and builds a higher platform for increases in future years. It does not yet address the importance of multi annual funding commitments across the sporting spectrum though the three year deals agreed with the GAA and Gaelic Players Association does give further impetus to that becoming an accepted best practice in the future.
UK Sports Funding for the next four year cycle was announced recently in Britain and is part of a short series we will run in the early days of January looking at a number of areas that we see as important in 2017.
