Irish Sport is to get back an additional €2 Million in funding from Government through the Irish Sports Council. This brings back up to €42 Million the Government investment in current spending for 2014. There will also be additional funds of up to €30 Million available through a new round of Sports Capital Grants to be announced in the coming weeks.
The announcement of the extra funding was made on Wednesday by Minister of State for Sport Michael Ring (pictured this summer with Celtic Manager Neil Lennon at the Aviva Stadium) at the Phillips Manager of the Year Awards in Dublin.
There was a storm of protest at the time of the budget when initial figures suggested that current spending would face an 8% cut in the next twelve months. Officials and Ministers at the time expressed disappointment that the overall lift in sports spending had been overshadowed by this row and that money would most likely be available once the funding process had begun.
This is what has transpired and the current spending reduction for 2014 is now down to 3%.
Of course any cut is to be regretted, especially when the social and economic benefit of spending on sport from within health and education is so compelling but substantial additional work behind the scenes needs to go on to bridge the gap between the short term spending restriction of government and the long term benefit of spending money in different ways to those that have traditionally been the case.
Funding plans from each of the National Governing Bodies of Sport are now being considered by the Irish Sports Council who will make announcements on the distribution of the €42 Million Government money between elite and grassroots sport early in the new year.
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