Cycling Ireland’s application for £400,000 from a Sport Northern Ireland Covid19 fund, for almost 100 cycling clubs in the North, would be examined by a parliamentary committee, MLA Kellie Armstrong has said.
Ms Armstrong, who is a member of the Legislative Assembly in the North with the Alliance Party and represents the Strangford constituency, said the “scrutiny committee” she sits on would ask questions about how the sports funding scheme was administered.
She said some of those questions would be about Cycling Ireland’s application for £400,000, though just over £14,518 was eventually awarded to the cycling governing body under the Sports Sustainability Fund.
“The committee has asked that the Minister and Sport NI come in to see us. We will be exploring these types of questions,” Ms Armstrong said on BBC Ulster's Stephen Nolan show on Friday about the way funds were granted under the scheme to many organisations and clubs.
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“We do have evidence about the Cycling Ireland
application form. And what I would like to know is… The application form that
was originally put in; was that actually the application form or were all
governing bodies at the very start asked to identify what they thought the
figures could be to ensure that the allocation for sport would be enough?”
While the matter was yet to be "scrutinised" by her committee, she understood when Cycling Ireland applied for £400,000 in respect of the 96 clubs in the North, Sport NI clarified that much of what was being claimed for was not permitted under the fund and the application did not satisfy its criteria.
Once that was made clear, she believed Cycling Ireland very significantly reduced the sum it was applying for, believed to be a revised amount of less than £60,000.
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“I believe that Sport NI due diligence went back and said
‘hold on a minute, you can’t apply for money for events that don’t happen, won’t
happen’. So that’s where a lot of the (requested) money was reduced from,” Ms
Armstrong said.
She added a whistleblower had alleged that the £14,518 sum eventually paid to Cycling Ireland was a “token” sum and the grounds it was awarded would be examined.
Stickybottle requested comment from Cycling Ireland on
the matter on Friday but at the time of writing no statement had been supplied.
However, it is understood Cycling Ireland gathered financial information from a small number of clubs that had the information available. An assessment was made of the past finances of those clubs and the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on their financial position.
Arising from that assessment, an average sum per club for pandemic-related losses was calculated. That average was then applied for - for a total of 96 clubs in the North - leading to a total application of £400,000 by Cycling Ireland.
However, when Sport Northern Ireland received the application it raised certain matters about it not meeting its criteria. Cycling Ireland then lowered the sum it was seeking and eventually some £14,518 was awarded to the governing body.
The sum requested by Cycling Ireland was much larger that some governing bodies, though others asked for more and some organisations received millions of pounds; something Ms Armstrong said her committee would be examining.
For example the Royal County Down golf club got £1.56 million, Royal Portrush golf club received £757,000, Ulster’s boxing association received £62,000, Ulster Council GAA was awarded £7.374 million and the Ulster Hockey Union, with 15 clubs, got £339,000, among many others.
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