FIANNA F\u00c1IL HELD an emergency meeting in Leinster House tonight amid frustration over Fine Gael politicians announcing details of a new sports grants scheme before it had been finalised.<\/p>\n
It is understood that junior sports minister Charlie McConalogue told colleagues that the Community Sports Facilities Fund (CSFF) was still being worked on.<\/p>\n
However, several Fine Gael politicians have already announced on social media that registration for the scheme will open next Monday.<\/p>\n
It is understood there was frustration among Fianna F\u00e1il TDs that their Coalition colleagues had been able to begin publicising the scheme before them.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Sports Minister Patrick O\u2019Donovan told RT\u00c9 that information on the scheme had been shared with Fianna F\u00e1il and Independent members of government earlier this week.<\/p>\n
The matter is now expected to be discussed by Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin and T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris.<\/p>\n
The CSFF is due to replace the long-running Sports Capital Programme.<\/p>\n
The new fund provides grants to sports clubs and organisations for developing or upgrading facilities and buying equipment, including projects such as pitches, clubhouses, floodlights and changing rooms.<\/p>\n
The CSFF is replacing the long-running Sports Capital and Equipment Programme, which served broadly the same purpose, with the new scheme introducing a revamped application process and funding structure.<\/p>\n
The row follows previous tensions between the Coalition parties over the new fund.<\/p>\n
Last month, Fine Gael TD Miche\u00e1l Carrigy criticised McConalogue for holding information meetings on the proposed scheme before its full details had been finalised.<\/p>\n
Carrigy said at the time that the meetings had \u201cmuddied the waters\u201d and left some sports clubs confused.<\/p>\n
Fianna F\u00e1il TDs defended the meetings, saying there had been significant demand from clubs for information on the new scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIANNA F\u00c1IL HELD an emergency meeting in Leinster House tonight amid frustration over Fine Gael politicians announcing details…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[138176,269160,269161,269162,895,3775,1523,61,60,43,269163],"class_list":["post-633989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-charlie-mcconalogue","tag-coalition-clash","tag-community-sports-facilities-fund","tag-csff","tag-fianna-fail","tag-fine-gael","tag-government","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-sports-grants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=633989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}