Minister Michael Ring officially announced the recipients of the fifteenth Go for Life National Grant Scheme for Sport and Physical Activity for Older People in December 2015. These grants amount to a total of €300,000 being funded by Sport Ireland to encourage and enable older people to be more active. Groups successful in their applications include Active Retirement groups, ICA groups, Men's Sheds, Family Resource Centres, sports clubs.

As the New Year kicks off, groups across the country will be spending Go for Life activity grants on sports equipment, new programmes and sports days. The Go for Life Small Grant Scheme from Age & Opportunity and Sport Ireland awarded over 1,000 small grants to groups and clubs across the country who are encouraging physical activity among older people. These grants are estimated to reach over 30,000 older people each year and have, over 15 years, invested €5million in getting older people more active within their communities.

Nora Carmel Healy of Oughterard Active Retirement Association says their group will use this years grant to subsidise aqua aerobics for their members and also buy some equipment to improve the mobility of the group.  “We have two PALs (Go for Life Physical Activity Leaders) in the group so there is always someone to get us active at our meetings and the grant makes going to the pool a bit more affordable. Over 30 members of our group would be more active because of Go for Life”.