Marks are also awarded for the technical merit of the project and the level of own funding provided by the applicant. Projects based in socio-economically disadvantaged areas are expected to be given extra weighting as recommended in a review of the previous round of the sports capital programme which awarded over €62m in grants in 2017. It subsequently emerged that both schools had sent almost identical letters threatening the department with legal action if their appeals were not granted. The review of the grants scheme concluded it was not desirable that all applicants from a particular county should receive the entire requested funding levels. While it found the method of allocating grants was “reasonable and transparent,” it acknowledged that further changes could still be made to make the scheme fairer.

Source: Evening echo December 03, 2018 12:56 UTC