Budget 2010 and sport...

Sparks

From the FIS website:

4% REDUCTION IN IRISH SPORTS COUNCIL FUNDING

The 4% reduction in Irish Sports Council funding has to be seen in a positive light given that it was only in July that the McCarthy Report recommended a 33% reduction in Irish Sports Council monies.

However, the Sports Capital Programme remains stalled with the €48 million (down 14% from the €56 million awarded in 2009) allocated to it. These monies will, like in 2009, be used to meet existing obligations in respect of grants previously awarded. There will be no new round of the Programme in 2010.

The same can be said of the Local Authority Swimming Pool Programme which saw a 40% reduction in its 2009 allocation down from €12.4 million to €7.5. However, again these funds are going to meet existing obligations under the first round of the programme which closed in July 2000.

The government also allocated €4.5 million to the soon to be completed Aviva Stadium. This sum represented the final commitment of government to the project.

The National Sports Campus received approximately €5.29 million approximately €1.6 of which will go to meet running costs at the National Aquatic Centre as well as other current expenditure whilst €3.5 million is to go towards the refurbishment of the old Marine Buildings with a view to the setting up of a new Sport HQ for the National Governing Bodies of Sport. The future of the Campus in terms of the development of the sports facilities remains unclear.

The Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund was reduced by 13% from €68.128 million in 2009 to €59.264 for 2010. Interestingly, however the Horse & Greyhound Fund was removed from the Sports & Recreation Services Heading where it has sat in recent years to this year being an individual line in the Estimates.

A full breakdown of the expenditure of the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism can be found at page 75 of the 2010 Estimates available on the link below

And also from the FIS website, the Minister for Sport's statement:

MARTIN CULLEN MAKES STATEMENT ON BUDGET 2010

Martin Cullen TD, Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism commented today on Budget 2010 saying that the importance of the arts, sport and tourism sectors to the country are “reflected in the commitments contained in the Renewed Programme for Government and the funding secured under Budget 2010 for the Department’s activities over the course of next year.”

Funding to the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism for 2010 is €501m. Within this, current funding is €369m, while capital expenditure is €132m. Funding to Arts, Culture and Film is €166m, funding for Sport and Recreation services is €115m and funding to Tourism Services is €155m.

...

Sport

Expenditure on sport will be €115 million in 2010.

The Minister said that the Government is committed to increasing and developing participation and interest in sport, improving standards of performance and to developing sports facilities thereby contributing to healthier lifestyles and an improved overall quality of life.

A total of €48m has been provided for the Sports Capital Programme in 2010. Minister Cullen said: “The provision of €48m for Sports Capital projects will ensure that commitments arising in 2010 from previous allocations under the Sports Capital Programme will continue to be made and that a range of modern facilities will be brought in to use in 2010. Over the past 10 years, in excess of €750 million has been allocated to 7,400 sports projects all over the country.”

The Minister continued: “Funding to the Irish Sports Council for 2010 is at €49.789m, a reduction of 4% on the 2009 levels, but is a significant investment by Government to enable this important agency maintain existing programmes and build on recent significant progress in all areas including Local Sports Partnerships, Buntús, Women in Sport, Older People and Sport, Youth Field Sports and the High Performance Programme.”

The Lansdowne Road Stadium, a key sports infrastructure project, remains on schedule to be completed on time and within budget in 2010. The allocation by the Department of €4.5m in 2010 represents the retention amount of the Government's funding for the project of €191m.

Minister Cullen also said: “Ireland is the third largest breeder of thoroughbreds in the world and Irish horses and jockeys consistently succeed at the highest level. An estimated 27,000 jobs are supported by both the horse and greyhound industry in Ireland and significant inward investment is attracted to the country. Taking account of the need to continue to support both industries, €59.264m is being allocated by Government to the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund in 2010. This is a reduction of 13% on the funding provided in 2009.”

Phase One of the National Sports Campus project remains under review. An amount of €3m is being provided for the refurbishment of the former Marine Institute building at Abbotstown which will be used as a headquarters for national governing bodies of sport. The remainder of the allocation will be used to provide for capital maintenance at the National Aquatic Centre.

dCorbus

Do we sports shooters get any of this cash support anyway?:D
If so, where do I apply?!:rolleyes:

Sparks

Yes, basicly, through the High Performance Unit's Carding Scheme, but the criteria are insane for all but Juniors on the rifle/pistol side of things. For the lowest level adult grant (Developmental), you'd have to be shooting a score of around 590 in mens air rifle, 391 in women's air rifle, 590 in men's prone rifle, 1159 in mens 3P rifle, 553 in women's 3P rifle or 570 in men's air pistol.
By the time you're hitting those scores in those disciplines at world cup/european championships/world chamionships levels, you'll already have won medals all over the place and be at the point where we should have been supporting you through the scheme for about four or five years. The thing is, the criteria just don't reflect the level of competition out on the international circuit, and haven't for at least a decade, and the ISC is playing silly buggers about rewriting them.

It wasn't me!

Never seen that chart before, Sparks. Thanks for that. so hitting into the 590s and getting the results outlined will get funding? Interesting... That's doable on one's own. (Stupid to have to do so of course, but bitching and whining doesn't get you there either)

Sparks

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Never seen that chart before, Sparks. Thanks for that. so hitting into the 590s and getting the results outlined will get funding?

Technically, no.
That's the worst of this - the funding is determined by placing, not score; so you don't even have a set target to aim for. If others have a bad day 588 might get you in; if they have a good day, it might take 593 or 594. Changing the criteria over to a scores basis is something the NTSA's been trying to do for years now.
And it has to be done at a world cup or world/european championships, which can mean multiple trips abroad (all of which you have to qualify for already) before you see a penny of funding from the ISC.

Interesting... That's doable on one's own. (Stupid to have to do so of course, but bitching and whining doesn't get you there either)

It's doable... but it's not meant to be done alone. The point of the Carding Grant (and I've lost track of how often I've said this) is to support athletes so that they can go get medals; not to reward them after they come home with them. That's what endorsement deals are for

dCorbus

Ah now, that's pants!:D

590 in men's prone rifle

Hmmm, best get practicing so!:eek:

590 in mens air rifle

Hmmmmmmmmmm, best get REALLY REALLY practicing so!:eek:

On those levels of scoring, there's not many out there who'd qualify! Some - and we all know who they are!

Flipping Heck indeed! So when I do hit the 590 mark, who should I pick the cheque up from?:rolleyes:

At that stage, all my hard-earned / stolen / embezzled / borrowed cash will have been well-spent on rifles, gear, ammo, training, travel, security, memberships, insurance, and general kit & sundries - so not much point then is there!:D Coz I'll have to be bailed out of the debtors-prison first before competing!:rolleyes:

Sparks

Actually, I think 590's higher than the Irish AR60 record...

And if you did qualify (and the cheque comes via the NTSA, or is meant to - there's all manner of ISC-generated daftness in there as well), you'd get the princely sum of (IIRC) €3,000.

Given that one trip to one World Cup is going to cost between €1500 and €2000, and there are between three and six you could be going to in any one season (as well as several other smaller matchs, training camps and so on, not to mention equipment costs, consumables (ie. ammunition and targets), range costs, and so on), it's a tiny amount for someone training at the level you'd have to be training at to qualify for the funding.

Plus, if you shot exactly 590 every time, then depending on how shooters from other countries did on the day, you could qualify for Developmental; or for International. And just because you qualified for International doesn't mean you'd have hit the Developmental targets! The criteria from Junior on up are basicly a bad joke.

Sparks

Sparks wrote: »

Actually, I think 590's higher than the Irish AR60 record...

Well, internationally, 579 (Declan Kelly in the 2002 World Championships in Lathi, Finland) is the record. Still trying to find the domestic record...

dCorbus

So how is any shooter ever supposed to develop? except by financing their development themselves?!

"Developmental" - surely, shooting at international events would up the ante and push our national "benchmark" higher?

Best go looking for sponsorship so!:rolleyes: Yeah, right, like that would work!
(Even if successful, it would probably disqualify you anyway, or not?)

Sparks

So how is any shooter ever supposed to develop?

Noone seems to care about that outside of shooters, that's the problem.

Even if successful, it would probably disqualify you anyway, or not?

Not. There are specific rules for sponsorship in the ISSF rulebook (mostly relating to where you can put their ads on your shooting jacket or rifle), but there's no prohibition on sponsorship or endorsements, not from ISSF and not from any Irish source. Some Irish shooters have had a little sponsorship over the years, but we don't really have any major sponsor we could point at our best shooters.

Bananaman

Sparks wrote: »

And if you did qualify (and the cheque comes via the NTSA, or is meant to - there's all manner of ISC-generated daftness in there as well), you'd get the princely sum of (IIRC) €3,000.

I thought that the ISC, for shooting, only allocates monies - in the region of feck all - like a couple of grand - to the SSAI and they can allocate it to their member organisations.

Seeing as the NTSA (voluntarily) exited the SSAI surely they can no longer be recipients of ISC funding seeing as the voluntarily opted out.

High performance stuff gets issued - as you said - to people who are on their second trip to the Olympics - after having funded the first attempt themselves - and even then its feck all - I think the Clay guys got like 30 grand between them for a year,

It'd cost you more in time and effort to get the few bob that it'd be worth to you if you succeeded.

B'Man

Sparks

Bananaman wrote: »

I thought that the ISC, for shooting, only allocates monies - in the region of feck all - like a couple of grand - to the SSAI and they can allocate it to their member organisations.

To the SSAI and the ICPSA at the moment; the NTSA has been seeking independent recognition since exiting the SSAI.

Seeing as the NTSA (voluntarily) exited the SSAI surely they can no longer be recipients of ISC funding seeing as the voluntarily opted out.

Surely the SSAI can't be recipients of High Performance funding since (as the criteria indicate), it's only for Olympic and Paralympic events?

(Actually I'm just winding you up, it's not remotely this snippy. The SSAI and NTSA get on quite well. The ISC is the source of the problem here).

And technically, the monies only go through the NGB for the Juniors; for the adults, the monies are meant to come direct from the ISC. In fact, the ISC have specifically said in the past that any adult recipient of a carding grant wouldn't need an NGB to continue receiving the grant. So there's no way the SSAI could disperse high performance monies to member NGBs - the monies would arrive ringfenced and allocated already if it came through them.

High performance stuff gets issued - as you said - to people who are on their second trip to the Olympics - after having funded the first attempt themselves - and even then its feck all - I think the Clay guys got like 30 grand between them for a year,

30k for a world class grant per person. Given that the cost of competing alone exceeds that (and we're not even counting living costs), it's an absolute pittance.

But you can be sure the Minister won't miss the photo op if you bring home a medal from London...
:mad:

It wasn't me!

dCorbus, 590 in air and prone is doable. Probably requires more coaching to get there for air than for prone, but it's just a case of keeping a rigorous account of everything you do in training, training right and then using all the data you accumulate. I mean, it's a fairly simple matter to shoot a ten. If you had another simple task to do and were told that to achieve a certain standard, you only had to get this simple thing right five times out of six, you'd think it fairly unchallenging, right?

Sparks

Oh, it's completely doable. It's just that in air, the lads doing it tend to have a lot more financial and technical support in other countries, who have similar sizes, demographics and budgets to ours. In Ireland though, shooting's not seen as a "real" sport by those deciding on who gets what level of funding. :mad:

I don't need them to hold the rifle up for me; but I'd rather appreciate it if they didn't put up obstacles for me as well, the sport's hard enough as it stands. I mean, I explained my air rifle licence to the others in Kuortane and they thought I was taking the mickey out of them. When I last told someone what the criteria above were, they thought the same thing. And as to the idea that in Ireland you could be a respected professional in the field of sport (of any sport, outside of maybe GAA), well, that's really a bad joke. Only in the last few years could you even have a job in sport (again, outside the GAA), but to just earn your living from it for your whole life? Not a hope.

Kryten

I think there is a bigger hill to climb in Pistol. RF Pistol has not yet been tried here, and air pistol is in it's infancy. No coaching possible, as there are no coaches here. Limited facilities running this type of shooting, a bu*****t licencing system, where your superintendent can refuse the most active sports shooter his/her licence just because he thinks all guns are bad mkay.
So if anyone gets to a qualifying score on their own, that would really be something.

rrpc

This is good news after a hiatus of two years:

A total of €48m has been provided for the Sports Capital Programme in 2010. Minister Cullen said: “The provision of €48m for Sports Capital projects will ensure that commitments arising in 2010 from previous allocations under the Sports Capital Programme will continue to be made and that a range of modern facilities will be brought in to use in 2010. Over the past 10 years, in excess of €750 million has been allocated to 7,400 sports projects all over the country.”

All clubs should be ready to make applications for this. It's tough enough getting money together for projects so something like this could provide up to 70% of your outlay on development work or equipment.

Rathdrum's electronic targets got partial funding to the tune of €12,000 in 2006.

Sparks

I'd love for that to be good news rrpc, but so far as I can tell, that 48 million is to cover ongoing projects under the capital grant scheme, not to allow for new ones. If they're reopening the scheme, I've missed the announcement (which is a lot more possible these days, however )