As election fever grips the political establishment, there is one major sporting announcement that the Ministers will be keen to make before the likely recess and the campaign accelerating into full swing.

The Large Scale Sports Infrastructure Fund announcement is expected this week, and news on the latest of the country’s largest projects is keeping many sporting bodies, local authorities, and clubs on the edge of their seats.

Applications were made before July 1st of this year, and since then, they have been evaluated and scored across a variety of key criteria, with sporting participation and social participation to the fore.

New Swimming Pool Projects are being considered in this latest round of the fund.

In the first round of applications for this fund, back in 2018, 72 applications were received, with the ultimate cost of providing those facilities amounting to €667 million and two streams of preparedness.

The projects for which money was granted included the RDS Redevelopment, which is currently underway, and the Redevelopment of Dalymount Park, which is expected to be one of the winners in this round of funding.

The amount that will be unveiled this week is expected to be in nine figures of €100 million plus but even that will not satisfy all of the applications.

There are projects which funding of between €600,000 and €30 million is being sought. They are marquee projects and the fund has once again been heavily oversubscribed with applications.

They have been judged based on 14 criteria with the three highest scoring, each representing ten per cent of the score being the likelihood of increasing active participation in sport for all users, the technical merits of the project and its score on sustainability.

The NGB giving a project priority is worth nine per cent, as is the local authority.

As an example we are aware that the number one priority for Athletics ireland is the redevelopment of Morton Stadium, pictured above.

The ability of a project to raise its own funding is worth eight per cent, as is the commitment to sharing and multi-use.

Improving high performance and the ability to deliver the project are scored with seven per cent, the level of socio-economic disadvantage and population growth with six per cent, the sharing of facilities between NGB’s and local Authorities five per cent, improving the level and quality of social participation and that of persons with a disability are the other criteria.

An additional element for the 2024 round of funding is that each applicant must have an equal access policy for Men and Women wityh six key elements to this including the national body having reached the 40 per cent gender balance in leadership threshold.

The starting gun then is loaded and ready to be fired.

We will, of course, bring you all the news and analysis when it is fired.

 

 

 

 

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