€1.2m in grants for County Wexford clubs
GOREY Community School is to be given grant aid of €82,696 towards the cost of developing new astro-turf training facilities.
The school, which accommodates over 1,500 pupils and has 150 members on the teaching staff, is one of the largest secondary schools in the country.
It was one of 40 organisations in County Wexford that received a share of €1,255,155 in capital grant funding under the Sports Capital Programme (SCP).
The announcement was made by the Ministers Shane Ross and Brendan Griffin on Friday.
A total of €37m was allocated to 994 different projects nationwide relating to 37 different sports.
In County Wexford two other organisations, along with the Gorey school, received grants in excess of €70,000, including: Ballygarrett Realt na Mara GAA club, which received €75,178, and Clongeen GAA club which will benefit by €70,383.
The Sports Capital Programme is the primary source of Government funding for sports and community organisations nationwide and to-date over 10,000 projects have benefited from funding since the scheme began in 1998.
In the interim the initiative has provided around €1bn in funding nationwide.
The individual funding allocations were decided following the overall funding amount being divided ‘on a county basis’ and then county population was factored in along with the number of applications.
The expanding landscape of sports within the Model County was highlighted in the allocations as Gorey Hockey Club was granted funding of €66,345 for pitch development which is perhaps indicative of a rise in popularity of the sport - especially with the ongoing success of the Irish women’s senior team who recently qualified for the Olympics in the wake of their World Cup final appearance.
GAA clubs were at the forefront of funding grants and throughout the county a total of €504,397 was granted to such organisations across the four district areas.
A number of soccer clubs also received money and shared a total allocation of €74,392 between them while boxing clubs around the county received €67,046.
Golf clubs also received a number of grants with the overall funding to the sport amounting to €127,986 while around the county, athletics clubs shared a total of €6,973.
Killurin Rowing club received €6,232 while €12,769 was allocated to St Patrick’s snooker club and in the area of public amenities and community groups an allocation of €68,653 was granted to Wexford County Council for the development of a skate park facility in Min Ryan Park.
That news was welcomed by Cllr David Hynes who has lobbied for such a facility for many years on the local authority.
Following the announcement Cllr Leonard Kelly welcomed it as great news for Wexford town and he acknowledged the role played by Cllr Hynes in keeping the issue on the council agenda ‘for many years’.
Hook Sub Aqua club received €7,504.
In terms of the county divide the Gorey area was the major beneficiary with €328,897 granted to organisations in the town and district.
In Wexford town the High Meadows Community Hub, which is a registered charity set up to provide a much needed space and facilities for all youth and community activities in the Clonard area, was sanctioned grant funding of €69,806.
The specific aim of the funding will be to go towards building a community hub for the 13th Wexford scouts.
The organisation hopes, through its fundraising efforts, to defray the cost of constructing ‘this much needed community building on land donated by the Wexford County Council’.
One of the uses of the hub will be to provide a permanent home to the 13th Wexford Scout Group which runs five busy sections for boys and girls from the age of six years upwards.
The scout group has been in existence in Clonard for over 40 years and such is its popularity that it operates a waiting list.
The Educena Foundation received €39,230.
The organisation was set up in 2007 as a collaborative arrangement between five religious congregations: the Daughters of Charity; the Presentation Sisters; the Mercy Sisters; the Sisters of Christian Retreat and the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
The aim of the foundation is to preserve the Catholic ethos in its schools and to ensure that properties held in trust for the purpose of providing Catholic education could be efficiently managed for that purpose.