Co Kerry, the home constituency of Minister for Sport John O'Donoghue, has received nearly double the national average in capital sports funding for this year.
Yesterday Mr O'Donoghue announced almost €54 million in funding for more than 700 local sports clubs and facilities around the country. The funding will be provided through the State's share of receipts from National Lottery tickets.
Details of the funding were provided on a county-by-county basis by Mr O'Donoghue, who said the allocation was "further evidence of this Government's commitment to investing in sports facilities in every county".
However, an analysis of the figures by The Irish Times, based on the population of each county in 2002, the latest year available, shows that the pattern has continued whereby the home county of the minister for sport tends to receive one of the highest levels of funding in relation to its population. This year, 61 local sporting organisations in the Minister's county are to receive nearly €3.43 million in grants. These range in size from €1,000 for Tralee rowing club to €250,000 for a sports centre for Annascaul.
In terms of the population of Kerry, put at just under 134,000 in 2002, this year's funding amounts to €25.86 per person.
This is the second highest ratio in the country and beaten only by Co Leitrim, which also happens to have the smallest population of any county.
Counties with similar populations to Kerry, such as Meath, with just under 140,000 people in 2002, has received an average of €12.28 per person.
Since Mr O'Donoghue took office as Minister for Sport in 2002, Kerry has enjoyed one of the highest rates of funding for any county. This has been consistently above €3.3 million.
Yesterday a spokesman for Mr O'Donoghue said the high level of funding for Kerry was not linked to the fact that the Minister was from Kerry.
He said the level of funding for any county was based on the quality, number and size of the applications. He added that Kerry's overall share was likely to fall when a further €22 million for regional sporting facilities was announced in the coming weeks.
However, Fine Gael's leader in the Seanad, Brian Hayes, called for a review of the current system, describing it as "the personification of political patronage".
He said the allocation of the sports grants should be handed over to local authorities. There has been a consistent pattern of higher levels of sports capital funding being allocated to the home counties of sports ministers.
When Dr Jim McDaid was minister for sport his home county of Donegal had one of the highest rates of grant aid under the programme, attracting over €5 million in some years.
In 2002, his last year in the office, Donegal receivedan average of €36.70 per person, the highest of any county. When Charlie McCreevy was minister for finance his home county of Kildare was one of the biggest beneficiaries, coming close to the top of the league of counties and getting between €3.3 million and €4.8 million per year between 2001 and 2004. This year Kildare has the lowest rates of funding with €1.4 million.