Varadkar: No further ISC fund cuts

Minister for Sport, Leo Varadkar is expecting no additional cuts in funding to the Irish Sports Council in the coming year.

The minister said there will be cutbacks of around five percent, but these are in line with the details of the Comprehensive Spending Review, adding his department is not expecting to see further cuts in the upcoming budget.

“It will be cut, but it will be cut in line with the Comprehensive Spending Review published a few months ago, so you’re talking a roughly five percent cut to the Irish Sports Council.

“But I’m not anticipating any additional cuts to what was planned already.

“The funding that comes from the Department of Sport tends to go directly to the local sports partnerships, and national governing bodies such as the IRFU or Hockey Ireland, and then local sports projects,” he said.

Minister Varadkar was speaking at the official opening of the new €9m state-of-the-art all-weather sports complex in the University of Limerick, the largest of its kind in Europe.

The minister added the privately funded facility is something even his own department are envious of, and at €9m, it would equal almost 75 percent of the department’s Sports Capital Budget.

“What’s most impressive about it is that while they have had government support for earlier phases, this current phase opened today was done entirely with their own commercial revenues and private sector support.

“I think it’s fair to say these are facilities almost every other third level institution in Ireland is going to envy, and I am a little bit envious myself, given the Sports Capital Budget is probably going to run at around €12-13m a year for the next couple of years,” he added.