§ Lord Lairdasked Her Majesty's Government:
How much funding the Northern Ireland Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure provided each year since 1999 to:
whether there is a cross community requirement in any such funding; what that requirement is; and how it was monitored. [HL3500]
- (a) association football;
- (b) rugby union;
- (c) cricket; and
- (d) Gaelic Athletic Association games;
§ Baroness AmosThe Sports Council for Northern Ireland (SCNI) is responsible for the development of sport in NI including the distribution of public funding to individual sports.
The following tables provide details of exchequer funding from SCNI for the financial year 1998–99 to 2003–04 for the four sports of soccer, Gaelic games (excluding camogie), rugby and cricket.
65WASafe Sports Grounds
The money provided by the Safe Sports Ground Programme was made available from financial year
1998–99 £ 1999–2000 £ 2000–01 £ 2001–02 £ 2002–03 £ 2003–04 £ Total £ Soccer 1,206,809 784,003 415,188 2,406,000 Gaelic Games 622,085 350,833 507,082 1,480,000 Rugby 136,843 140,612 68,536 345,991 Total 1,965,737 1,275,448 990,806 4,231,991 As the organisations listed are voluntary organisations, they do not have any statutory duty under section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. However, the Sports Council does require all organisations which it funds to have an equity policy in place in their constitution/articles of association. Each of the organisations listed has provided the Sports Council with a copy of their Equity Policy.