Written answer
Sports Funding
417. Deputy Joanna Byrne asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the total cost required to fund all accepted applicants and all unapproved valid submissions for all rounds of the Large-Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51222/26]
Comment on this
The total ask from applications made under the 2018 and 2024 round of LSSIF amounted to €837 million.
The initial call for the Large-Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund (LSSIF) opened in November 2018. Applications were confined to Local Authorities and National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of Sport with a total ask of €172m across 72 proposals.
First allocations were announced in January 2020 with €86.4m awarded to 33 projects. In December 2023, an additional €37.6m was allocated to 27 of those original projects as part of a top-up allocation to address inflation costs, bringing the cumulative funding under the first round of the programme to €124m.
The 2024 round of LSSIF received an unprecedented demand for funding, amounting to €665 million from 96 applicants. As a result of this significant demand, a range of valid applications did not receive an LSSIF allocation at the initial allocation stage.
Grants totalling €173 million, benefiting 35 individual projects was allocated under the second round of LSSIF. With this announcement, the cumulative investment from the Large-Scale Sport Infrastructure Fund since 2020 reached €297 million.
Details of allocations under the LSSIF can be found on the Department’s website by using this link: www.gov.ie/en/campaigns/54403-large-scale-sport-infrastructure-fund-lssif/
With regards to a future round of the LSSIF, I am committed to ensuring sustained investment in sports facilities to meet our ambitious goals for sports participation nationwide. The Programme for Government commits to maintaining sports funding to get more people participating in all levels of sport, particularly targeting cohorts in society where there are lower than average participation levels.
My current focus is on ensuring project delivery under the first two rounds of the LSSIF, 2018 and 2024, and this process will inform any decisions regarding the timing of a future round.