Special Olympics Clears Funding Hurdle

Funding for a Special Olympics Ulster project has been agreed with news that the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and the Ministers for Sport, Education, Health and Social Development have announced cross-departmental support.

Welcoming the announcement the First Minister Peter Robinson, (pictured) and the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said: "Following the approval of a business case, our five departments have come together to agree funding for Special Olympics Ulster for the four-year period 2011-2015, to allow it to take forward and expand its programme of activities.

"The funding being made available totals £2.296m and will be provided equally by each of our five departments.

"This significant funding recognises the valuable contribution of Special Olympics in creating awareness and understanding of people with an intellectual disability, and in promoting opportunities and inclusiveness for all members of the community, by encouraging participation, volunteering, active citizenship and healthy lifestyles," the Ministers said.

"We are confident that the money being provided by our departments will play a crucial role in meeting the disparate needs of a group of people, who through sport can achieve higher levels of social inclusion within our community," adding that, in recognition of the movement's importance and value, Government has in the past, provided large scale grants to support the staging of major Special Olympics events.

This included hosting of the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 2003 and the Summer All-Island Games in 2006.

These grants were however never intended to cover the day-to-day operational costs of incurred by Special Olympics Ulster.

Instead, Special Olympics Ulster's on-going budget has largely been made up of money raised through fundraising and government funding from the Irish Government.

In the context that funding from the Irish Government was not sustainable in the current economic climate, a request for exchequer funding, in the form of a business case, was received from Special Olympics Ulster, covering the four-year period 2011-15 and this business case was approved and subsequently the question of obtaining a budget for the projects was addressed by the five NI departments concerned.

These five departments agreed to jointly provide the £2.296million budget required for the project with funding to Special Olympics Ulster distributed through Sport NI.

(BMcC/GK)