Grants for Sport – The Numbers

The Government has announced more than €2.6 million in grants to 22 national sports governing bodies.  These are mainly to buy equipment that will assist a diverse range of sports to attract more participants, run better competitions, monitor performance and train more effectively, building on the success of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Some level of funding has been awarded to each of the 22 governing bodies that applied.
The biggest awards have gone to The Irish Sailing Association for the purchase of coaching boats and equipment, a mobile training fleet and vans with a total grant of €400,000; to Athletics Ireland for the running of indoor and outdoor competitions, club equipment, starting gates and monitoring and analysis equipment with a total grant of €350,000.
The IRFU won funding of €257,000 for club training equipment, scrum machines and a GPS tracking system while the FAI and GAA were each granted €220,000 for equipment.
Swim Ireland won an award of €249,000 towards facilities at three national performance centres in Limerick, Galway and Dublin while Cricket Ireland, the Irish Association of Wheelchair Sport, The Irish Olympic Handball Association and Badminton Ireland also secured six figure sums or close to it.
The new equipment will include items as diverse as a mobile Olympic Handball arena, scrum machines, a ‘cricket factory’ where you can try out cricket for fun, and martial arts arenas.
Providers of the equipment in many cases assisted with proposals as part of the funding and will receive a shot in the arm from the cash injection.  It is vital that monitoring of what is spent takes place and that there is no shifting of money granted for one purpose towards the funding of another.
Sports equipment providers will in some cases be prevailed upon to put something back into the sports by way of additional sponsorship and the overall effect of the grants will likely be greater than the actual monetary value.
“The real beneficiaries from this funding will be the thousands of sportspeople across Ireland who head out on weeknights and weekends to train with their local club,” said Michael Ring, Minister of State at the Department of transport, Tourism and Sport.
“Although some of the equipment will be used at national level by the governing bodies, a significant portion will be utilised at local level. I hope it will encourage more people to get involved in sport”.
The full list of grants and equipment is published below.