TENNIS CLUBS NET €300K HANDOUTS
IT’S game, set and match for posh players after Shane Ross served up loads of cash for “lawn tennis” clubs.
The gravy train rolls on as the Irish Mirror can reveal seven plush Dublin establishments netted almost €300,000 in taxpayers’ cash in the scandalous 2017 Sports Capital Programme.
But the embattled Sports Minister continues to insist there is no class bias involved – despite the fact just over half of the cash goes to disadvantaged areas.
The core plan for the grants, however, is specifically to help poorer groups.
Under Mr Ross’ watch last year €289,335 went to Dublin lawn tennis clubs, which was 44% of the total budget of €656,648 for the sport right across the country.
Sutton Lawn Tennis Club got €90,842, Charleville Lawn Tennis Club €60,297, Donnybrook Lawn Tennis Club €51,934, Glenageary Lawn Tennis Club €43,698, Trackside Lawn Tennis Club €28,500, Donabate Portrane Tennis Club Ltd €9,033 and Clontarf Lawn Tennis Club received €5,031.
One club alone has hit the public purse for more than €650,000 in recent years. Sutton Lawn Tennis Club in Howth was also given €113,996 in 2016, €281,913 in 2015, €9,000 in 2011, €135,990 in 2010 and €35,010 in 2009.
On the club’s website, it lists the extensive facilities it already has including 11 tennis courts – 10 of which are floodlit – two seasonal indoor tennis courts, two minicourts for juniors, two practice walls and five squash courts with viewing facilities.
It also boasts a premier fit gym – which it describes as a “brand new fully-equipped, state-ofthe-art” facility, a purpose-built snooker room, a member’s bar and lounge area with balcony overlooking tennis courts and function rooms.
The latest round of funding tips the total that lawn tennis clubs around the capital pocketed between 2016 and 2017 payments to over €1million.
A year earlier, Dublin clubs got €726,340 out of the €1,101,595 that went to tennis – accounting for 66% of the budget for the game. But Mr Ross insists he had no involvement in the 2016
payments that were already decided by previous ministries.
Mr Ross has shaken off criticism after he was lambasted for tweeting congratulations to Wesley College after the fee-paying school got €150,000 from the grants scheme.
He recently defended his cack-handed handling of the grants in the Irish Mirror, writing: “You probably heard of how I – as minister – supposedly threw piles of cash at ‘posh’ clubs and schools in 2016.
“The opposite is the case. In fact, of sports grants allocated in 2017 and so far this year, more than 50% went to disadvantaged areas.
“I will not tolerate this unfair condemnation.”
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AFTER the fortune given to rugby and golf clubs, it hardly comes as a surprise lawn tennis clubs also netted a huge amount.
Taxpayers will not be happy until the entire sports grants system is overhauled because at the moment it seems like one big racket.