Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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229. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will allow an organisation (details supplied) to apply for a scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [49518/23]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Sports Capital and Equipment Programme (SCEP) is the primary vehicle for Government support for the development of sports and recreation facilities and the purchase of non-personal sports equipment throughout the country. Over 13,000 projects have now benefited from sports capital funding since 1998 bringing the total allocations in that time to over €1.15 billion. The Programme for Government commits to continuing the SCEP and to prioritising investment in disadvantaged areas.

The latest round of the SCEP (2023) was open for applications from 9am on Monday 17 July until 5pm on Friday 8 September. The deadline for applications was widely publicised on Departmental communications channels and by a wide range of National Governing Bodies of Sport and national and local publications. The deadline was very clearly stated in the publishedGuide to Making an Application.

A preliminary examination of the submitted applications is now underway but it is clear that the Programme has again generated a very large number of applications and it is likely that the total number will exceed the previous record 3,106 applications submitted under the last (2020) round. The focus now is to begin assessing submitted applications in a bid to ensure timely distribution of funding to all successful applicants.

It is not proposed to reopen the 2023 round to permit additional applications as this would not be fair on the more than 3,000 applicants who did submit an application by the published deadline and would, in addition, delay the completion of the assessment and allocation processes.

Work is currently underway on finalising the "Scoring Assessment and Assessment Manual" for the 2023 round and I hope to have this published shortly. Simultaneously, I also plan to publish the full list of all applications received. Once these documents are published, the detailed assessment work can commence. It is planned to assess the "equipment-only" applications first and announce these grants in the coming months. Work will then commence on the assessment of the capital applications with the allocations likely to be announced later in 2024.