Incompetence Denies Tipperary Lottery Fund Application

Tipperary community groups and voluntary organisations with an involvement in the provision of Children’s and Youth Services were invited recently to apply under the National Lottery Discretionary Fund for once-off grants. We here in forgotten Tipperary were informed that a fund had been puts in place in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to this end.

The scope of the scheme was for the provision of services to children and young people, for once-off projects across a wide variety of areas such as the provision of equipment for youth clubs, youth cafes, scouts, summer camps, day trips for youth clubs/summer camps, play equipment for play schools / crèches and other once-off programs. In addition for 2014 the Department would also consider projects that focus on Children’s and Youth Health issues. Nice one!

Priority was be given to projects and activities that involve culture, play and recreation, healthy lifestyles for children and young people including innovative new projects aimed at emerging issues for children, and to provide marginalised groups with access to extra-curricular activity based projects. Nice one!

Completed applications were to be returned by post to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs no later than 12:30pm on Friday, 6th June, 2014.  All sounded great, however applications for this National Lottery funding would have to be made using a standard application form available / downloaded from the link shown HERE, and entitled National Lottery APP Form 2014 Final.doc.

Every effort by Tipperary community groups and voluntary organisations to download this application form since this announcement of funding however has failed, due to the incompetence of IT administrators at the Department of Children And Youth Affairs.

We at Thurles.Info realising the difficulty being experienced by community groups and voluntary organisations in downloading this ‘Application Form,’ advised the Department of Children and Youth Affairs on the morning of 29th May last as to their oversight. The following day, finding no IT correction to the download link, we emailed the responsible Minister, Mr Charles Flanagan TD about this on line basic “Error 404.0″ and while the minister promptly both telephoned on same day (30th May) and also emailed us (also on 30th May) promising immediate action, nothing has happened since.

I quote the Minister’s email “I have spoken directly with the Dept Secretary General. I expect matters will be rectified shortly. Thank you for bringing the matter to my attention.” signed Charlie Flanagan TD, Fine Gael Parliamentary Party Chairman, Laois/Offaly Constituency, Lismard Court, Portlaoise, Co. Laois.

It would now appear that the Dept Secretary General referred to in this email is experiencing difficulty with his ‘Line Management’ or perhaps all this funding has been already distributed, “nod, nod, wink, wink,” as has so often has been the case particularly in recent Tipperary Tourism Funding.

Note: As stated completed applications were to be returned by post to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs no later than 12:30pm on Friday, 6th June, 2014. Same now allows only 2.5 working days for those wishing to make an application for such funding.

Those still interested, at this late stage, in receiving an ‘Application Form‘ can obtain same by emailing direct dcyalotterygrants@dcya.gov.ie

Note: Also, as at time of going to press tonight, the site link inviting the ‘Application Form‘ download still remains showing a “HTTP Error 404.0 – Not Found” message. But then again this is a government administered website and government websites are by nature not supposed to work properly – or are they?

Maybe one of those persons who seek and exploit weaknesses in computer systems, could nip in and assist in correcting it for us.