We learned a lot about RTÉ and a little more about Sport at the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media this afternoon.
Media talking about media is always a recipe for rabbit holes but Minister Catherine Martin’s repeated assertion that she does not micro-managed the national broadcaster and does not need to be informed of every operational hiring or stepping down, must have been wearing even her calm patience.
Anyway if you want to read about what was said about the €16 million, the €40 million, the resignations, the consultants and all the rest, you will find no shortage of words.
When it came to sport we learned little more than what we had divined yesterday but there were some additional elements.
Minister Thomas Byrne told us that an additional €2 million was being made available to National Governing Bodies in this year’s budget.
If that emerges to be for Core funding only, and for those outside of the big three sports that are dealt with separately in Sport Ireland accounting, it would represent a 12.5 percent increase on last year’s funding allocation of €16 million which would be a positive but we do not yey know if that is the case.
It will be another few weeks before the revenue estimates are confirmed and line item figures become more accessible.
We do know that the amount of money ring-fenced for High Performance will have an additional €1 million and that for Women in Sport programmes and initiatives will double from €2 million to €4 million, something which both Ministers were strong on.
We learned that money for the Euro 2028 bid will not be needed, for the most part until closer to the tournament and that money for the GAA to help get casement park over the line would come from a separate fund under the control of the Taoiseach.
In capital terms the latest round of Sports capital has again been oversubscribed and while the money in this budget is for those projects it is likely a similar amount will be sought again for another annual round.
On Larger Scale projects the message was not so clear.
Major developments including the RDS and Dalymount Park have been funded to get to an early stage and are now being invited to pitch for the next level of funding but there was a degree of frustration that of the 25 projects to benefit under the announcement from the previous Minister Shane Ross back in January 2020, only two had so far progressed to be operational.
This is an area that will cause concern to some of the larger sporting bodies around major projects that have been some time in the development of already.
