Cork City Council will this month distribute close to half a million euro in funding to sports clubs across the city.

The council’s sports committee is due to meet early this month to approve the allocation of €470,000 in funding to sports clubs across Cork city.

Councillor Seán Martin, who is the chairperson of Cork City Council’s sports committee, said councillors had made funding for sports clubs a priority since their first meeting with council management after the election in 2019.

“Every year since, the funding has got bigger, and so we’re at €470,000 now and the plan is to go to €500-and-odd-thousand for next year,” Cllr Martin told The Echo.

“The submissions have come in and we’ll be meeting early this month to decide what to do with the funding.

“There’s applications for up to €5,000 and there’s applications from €5,000 plus,” the Fianna Fáil councillor said.

Mr Martin said that in some cases sports clubs had not been aware that funding was available, and councillors and council staff had assisted them in making applications.

“This year we have a weighted factor, we’ve put €50,000 aside to give an extra bit to the bigger clubs with the most membership.” 

Cllr Martin said sports funding from Cork City Council had never been higher. “It will be almost €2 million by the time the council finishes, which is a good day’s work."

Mr Martin, who has been a councillor since 1997, described as "extraordinary across the board" the funding currently being provided by Cork City Council.

“We’re able to do things. We’ve put in place a €200-and-odd-thousand award for estate resurfacing, which again was something we demanded from the first meeting of this council," Cllr Martin said.

“We told management that if we didn’t get these budgetary items in place, then there wouldn’t be any agreement with management.

“We had a list that we tick-boxed and, in fairness, management has come across as well."