At a time when election fever is rampant it could be said yesterday that Minister for State for Sport Michael Ring had ‘done his party some service’ with the announcement that €41 million was to be distributed to 891 individual projects across 45 sports and in every county if not quite every parish in the state.
This is the third round of Capital Funding under this government with €31 million allocated in 2012, €40.5 million provided in 2014, €41 million now and a further €17 million made through special allocations in recent years.
The demand for the first two rounds was higher than this year’s, a factor of the Grant programme having been suspended for four years prior to its reinstatement.
1,592 Applications
The total number of applications received this year was down 20% but still amounted to 1,592 applications. A little over 1,000 of these were deemed to be valid and 891 were successful. This compares well to the previous rounds where there were 648 and 880 successful applications respectively.
“The Sports Capital Programme ensures that as many clubs and organisations as possible have the facilities and equipment they need to allow the maximum number of people to get involved in a wide variety of sports,” said Ring yesterday.
“In addition to funding being provided to organisations such as the GAA, soccer, rugby, boxing and athletics, I am also funding equipment and facilities for more than 40 sports ranging from angling to weight lifting and a whole host in between.”
Upgrading
“By investing in community facilities, these grants take the pressure off clubs and groups to fundraise themselves to provide for the upgrading and building of premises and allows coaches and other volunteers to concentrate on growing the sports they know and love”.
“The Sports Capital Programme is the most important way in which the Government assists in the development and refurbishment of sporting facilities and in the purchase of non-personal sports equipment.”
“Throughout the application and assessment process an emphasis is placed on rewarding clubs and organisations that share facilities as well as on applications received from disadvantaged areas.”
“This year alone €14.5 million has been allocated to 305 projects that are located in or serve CLAR and RAPID areas.”
Weighting
This was the third time that a system of weighting based on population was used to determine the spread of distribution and for the second time Dublin sports clubs left money behind. In their case a significant €3 million after all the valid applications had been satisfied.
This year Dublin was joined by Kildare and Wicklow with money that would have been assigned to clubs in each being redistributed to others that had historically received less money.
Two of the big winners out of this year’s scheme appear to be Dublin City Council who secured funding of €1.8 million for 27 individual projects; and Athlone where four individual projects for Athlone Institute of Technology, Athlone Regional Sports Centre, Buccaneers Rugby Club and Athlone Town Football Club will draw down €598,000
Capital Vs Current
There have been suggestions in the past that capital investment was less important than current money to fund programmes but Minister Ring strongly refuted that when we put it to him yesterday.
“Over 90% of clubs and projects that have received Sports Capital Grant Funding have reported back that this has given rise to a significant increase in participation.”
“It makes sense that if there are better pitches, with better lighting and better facilities to get changed in that more people will be drawn towards using them and that is exactly what has happened.”
Balancing Act
It is indeed a balancing act to provide the facilities and the programmes but with participation rising from 44.8% to 47.2% between 2011 and 2013, the last two Irish Sports Council Sports Monitor reports, it is hard to say that the allocation of funding from Government to sport is not having a very positive impact.
On Monday Sport for Business will publish a detailed analysis of where the money has gone sport by sport and identify the bigger projects that will now become reality through the funding which needs to be drawn down within two years from the time of the grant.
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