Minister Martin Heydon TD for Kildare South welcomed the announcement this week by Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, and Minister of State for Sport and Gaeltacht Affairs, Jack Chambers T.D, together with Sport Ireland that a total of €127,750 in funding for the sport sector under two separate programmes is to be allocated to County Kildare Sports Partnership.

The total amount of €127,750 allocated to Kildare Sports Partnership will be broken down into Sports Equipment grants, Indoor Sporting grants and Small Grant schemes to support local clubs and groups. The Covid funding is being allocated under five separate streams to help sports organisations to recover and grow post pandemic, support our grassroots network of clubs and local sports partnerships, and ensure people of all ages and abilities return to sport and physical activity. The schemes are broken down as follows:  Scheme One will offer support to the IRFU, FAI, and GAA bodies, Scheme Two is a resilience fund to support for Non-Governing Bodies (NGBs), Scheme Three is a Club Resilience Fund, Scheme Four a Swimming Pool & Facilities Fund and Scheme Five a restart fund to support the Resumption of Sport & Physical Activity.

“In addition to this funding for County Kildare a further €5.3m is being provided to sport National Governing Bodies (NGBs) and Local Sports Partnerships (LSPs) for the provision of sports equipment including the roll out of defibrillators for clubs, kits for school children and state of the art equipment for our high-performance athletes.” Minister Heydon said.

Specific investment has also been provided for the disability sport sector in line with the SportForAll initiative with, amongst others, Special Olympics Ireland, the Irish Wheelchair Association and Paralympics Ireland receiving financial support. A number of the approved equipment grants are also specifically targeted at disability sport.

“The timing of the schemes provides stability and certainty to the sports sector as it emerges from Covid restrictions and plans ahead for 2022. Kildare people love their sport, and we are very supportive of our clubs, but the last two years have been two of the most challenging for all sports organisations and the announcement today of this funding of €127,750 will come as a relief for the sports sector. This additional, funding, coupled with the increase in the budget for sport in 2022, will ensure the long-term viability of our sports organisations, high performance sport and will make sure sport remains accessible to all,” Minister Heydon concluded.