Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Nov 1988

Vol. 383 No. 9

Private Members' Business. - National Lottery (Amendment) Bill, 1988: Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister of State at the Department of Finance (Mr. N. Treacy)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to address Deputies once again, but this time in more detail, on the matter of the Bill at present before the House. It has been said already in this debate, but I wish to say it again, that the Bill is an attempt to case a slur on the Government, to undermine public confidence in the Government and that it implies misappropriation of lottery funds. Anybody who has seen the work that has been done by the Office of Public Works at the five locations I have already described will have no doubt but that the lottery funds are being put to the most beneficial use.

I gave in detail last night a broad outline of the five projects of national importance which have been grant aided out of national lottery surplus funds. The works provide major efforts to reconstruct, repair, rehabilitate and improve facilities for various buildings that are important both architecturally and historically. Work on the Custom House can be taken as an example of some of the finest craftsmanship that has been carried out in this country for many years. The works which I was describing at No. 5 Kildare Street, as the debate finished last night, will be appropriately furnished to facilitate its use by the National Library. These works are on target for completion early next year.

I have gone into these five projects in some detail because I do not want anybody in this House to under-estimate the importance of the work that national lottery funds are assisting. How can Deputy Harney and others denigrate such fine work by their allegations and insinuations? For too many years the Office of Public Works have been eager to get to grips with the necessary works in these locations and others, but because of a continually worsening financial situation they have been unable to do so. Now, because of the funding that is made available from the national lottery, buildings that are unique, priceless and of the utmost significance to this nation's heritage can be preserved for future generations to enjoy.

During the past year the Government established the National Heritage Council. An allocation of £1 million was made available to the council. Already some very important national heritage centres have been grant aided. Post archaeological excavation works at a number of centres throughout the country have been grant aided and there are several other applications before the National Heritage Council which are presently being examined and appraised and further decisions will be made in due course to ensure that the balance of funds available to the national council from the national lottery surplus will be disbursed to the most important areas.

The remarks made by some Deputies in relation to the disbursement of national lottery funds are distasteful in the extreme and detract from the quite outstanding work that is being done by my Department. Lest anyone forget, this work is also going to benefit our tourist industry and is providing very important employment. The facilities being provided at the five locations I have already described in detail will ensure that visitor and tourist facilities for our own people and for foreigners will be available to ensure that they get the maximum opportunities to understand our history, our culture and our unique heritage.

The money allocated to the Office of Public Works is only a small part of the entire lottery allocation. Other Ministers will be speaking in this House on the details of how their Departments are spending their allocations. It is no harm to risk some repetition in the hope that the message will get through to certain people both inside and outside this House that the allegations being made are both offensive and totally inaccurate.

Let me take for example the 550 projects that will benefit from the £6 million national lottery fund allocated to the Department of the Environment. Some 2,000 applications, amounting to expenditure of approximately £61 million, were received by the Department. Rigorous selection resulted in allocations going to one quarter of them. Each application was examined in terms of the objectives of the applicants, the necessity for the proposed work, the cost effectiveness of the project and the jobs it would create.

It was important that every county and county borough should receive a reasonable allocation, bearing in mind that the money being allocated had been contributed by people in every part of the country. People who buy national lottery tickets must know that they have contributed to making life in this country a little easier and a bit more interesting for our own people and for those who come as visitors.

The types of projects assisted include the provision and development of open spaces and amenity and landscaping works designed to improve the local environment. Also covered is the provision of recreational facilities such as parks, outdoor playing areas, community centres and youth clubs, and a number of projects designed to enhance the historical, recreational and amenity value of designated urban renewal areas.

One of the conditions govering the way the distribution of the funds will be managed is that project sponsors made every effort to ensure that at least 50 per cent of the workforce is under 25 years of age and that other unemployed local people be employed where possible.

I have mentioned briefly how the national lottery will help the unemployed and also our tourist industry. There are many other areas that will benefit. For example, lottery funds have been used and will be used in the health and social welfare areas to help alleviate poverty and provide better care and facilities for the less fortunate in our society. With such motives, which I feel are recognised by all but the most callous of people, any attempt at what can only be described as misinformed and misguided policital opportunism will be seen by all fairminded people as just that. It is a crude and unjust attempt to score some points by running down the best intentions of all those involved in the national lottery and in the disbursement of its funds. I am of the firm opinion that those few misguided people have only succeeded in scoring own goals and have tried to destabilise and undermine the national lottery. It must be they who carry that responsibility.

Let me give just a few examples of the unquestionable goods use to which lottery funds are being put in the health area. A total of £10 million was allocated to the Department of Health 1987-88. Of this, £6 million was available for projects in the area of community health. The board headings under which this money was to be allocated were agreed at Cabinet in November 1987 and they are as follows: the handicapped, the elderly, psychiatric services, community information and development services, AIDS preventative programmes and child services. Within the headings a total of 157 projects have been assisted to date. Included in these are the handicapped where a large number of houses have been purchased to move the mentally handicapped from institutional care into the community. Funds have also been provided to assist voluntary organisations working with the physically handicapped, for example, the Irish Wheelchair Association received a grant of £150,000. A sum of £1 million has been provided for the development of day care services for the elderly as an alternative to institutional care. The involves the conversion of existing premises, for example, former district hospitals, and the provision of new services which will encourage care of the elderly at local community level.

Money has also been provided for the psychiatric services. This has been used, for the psychiatric hospitals and to proties to facilitate the movement of additional long stay patients. Money has also been provided in grants for the community information and development services. Under this heading grants have been used to provide for the enhancement within a broad framework of community information and community development services. The focus is on services provided by voluntary agencies.

A total of £450,000 was provided under the AIDS preventive programme in order to assist projects, particularly with an emphasis being placed on special measures to minimise the spread of infections among intravenous drug abusers and between these abusers and the community at large. A total of £700,000 was provided for child services, £500,000 of which was used to set up services around the country in order to facilitate the improved investigation and management of child sexual abuse.

On the social welfare side also, national lottery funds are being put to good use. In 1988 a scheme of grants to voluntary bodies is being funded by moneys made available from the national lottery surplus. The purpose of this scheme of grants to voluntary organisations administered by the Department of Social Welfare is to give support to voluntary organisations undertaking projects in the social services area. Under this scheme a sum of £750,000 was made available this year for once-off grants for particular projects being undertaken by such organisations. In addition, there were special allocations of £100,000 to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for personal development and home management courses for some 5,000 families and £50,000 under a pilot scheme for grants to voluntary organisations providing opportunities for unemployed people to become involved in their activities.

The vast bulk of the grants under this scheme are paid to organisations providing services in local communities, including services for women, parents and children and in other cases the projects involved would indirectly benefit these categories. In 1988 in excess of 100 organisations will have benefited under the Department of Social Welfare scheme. I think it should be reiterated that this Act was devised, compiled and introduced by the previous Government and that this Government have adhered to the criteria as clearly laid down by this House under the 1986 Act.

The Bill now before the House proposes the setting up of a board to disburse the lottery funds, comprising a judge and four others from the sports, culture, art, health and welfare areas. In the past two years the Government, in the face of great national debt, unemployment and the economic recession have made great progress to reduce our debt and put the country on a stable footing once more.

Decisions on national lottery allocations are arrived at by the Government. Before Ministers may subsequently disburse these funds for schemes and projects, the criteria and conditions for the scheme must first be submitted for examination and approval by the Minister for Finance and his officials. It is only after this examination, following the approval of the Minister for Finance, that the Minister can allocate grant aid, but only strictly in accordance with the regulations laid down by the Minister for Finance. This procedure is identical in these respects to the procedure adopted in the case of projects funded from the Exchequer. The Bill is being brought forward by Deputy Harney on the grounds that the lottery funds have not been properly allocated. What I have outlined so far demonstrates to this House and the general public that this view is outrageous and without foundation.

With regard to sport, the Department of Education were allocated £6.64 million under the heading of current expenditure and £10.5 million for capital expenditure. This year the 73 national governing bodies of sport will receive almost £1 million — £985,000 — in their annual grant for coaching, equipment and administration. This sum represents an increase of 22 per cent over last year's allocation. For 1988 also an extra £210,000 is being provided for the appointment of new administrators for these bodies to improve their management and coaching structures. A further £97,000 is being provided for the purchase of large items of equipment and for attendance at international meetings and conferences. Further extra grants of £273,000 are being made available to enable elite sports persons to compete in international competition and for the organisation of international competitions at home. A sum of £182,000 was allocated for development officers, while £100,000 was granted for the subsidisation of hurleys. A sum of £120,000 is being granted under the scheme for outstanding sports people, while the Olympic Council of Ireland received £500,000. Funding is also given to COSPOIR to enable them to develop "Sport For All" and other programmes and they in turn disburse these funds though the COSPOIR subcommittees of the various county vocational education committees and county borough education committees. Several other projects have also been grant-aided.

The details I have given for my Department, for the Department of the Environment, for the Department of the Social Welfare and the Department of Health, show clearly that every application has been examined in great detail, that decisions have been arrived at taking into account the criteria laid down by the Minister for Finance and the Department of Finance, that applications are brought forward to Government by the various Ministers and that only then can the individual applications be decided on by the various Departments and Ministers. This shows that both the management and disbursement of national lottery funds is accountable through each relevant Department, each relevant Minister, the officials of the Department of Finance and the Minister for Finance to the Government and finally to the Dáil. There can be no question but that there is full public accountability for the disbursement of all lottery grants.

This Bill is an effort by the Progressive Democrats, in particular, to get cheap political mileage and to make seriously false allegations, a campaign which they have carried on during the past number of months, because they cannot contend with the fact that some other party in Government have the ability to discharge their responsibilities both legally and properly in the best interests of all the people in the country. I am confident that the Irish people see this Bill for what it is and the attitude of that party for what it is — an effort to decry the efforts of the Government in their attempts to manage the affairs of this country openly and perfectly in the interests of everyone.

Mr. Howlin

The more contributions I hear from the Government benches on a variety of debates, the clearer it becomes that the Government are totally out of touch with reality. I do not think it is necessary for any of us to stand up here and to make a case for reform of the national lottery. Everybody, in their workplace or in their place of socialising in every county, is aware that the national lottery has been hijacked by the political party who form the Government of this country and is being used by that party in a naked attempt to purchase votes and to shore up the dwindling fortunes of a bankrupt administration. It is an acknowledged scandal. The Minister stood up tonight and gave a litany of handouts. A previous contribution from that side of the House was a similar litany of handouts. Nobody is denying that there are good beneficiaries from this fund but there are a few fundamentals which have to be recognised.

The first fundamental is that when this concept was first moved by the Coalition Government and enacted into legislation by the Houses of the Oireachtas the scale of moneys that became available was never envisaged. It was not envisaged that we would have this amount of money to put to good use in the community. At that time the Oireachtas certainly did not envisage that one political party would take it upon themselves to be the total arbitrators of these funds and moneys and to channel them in a party partisan way to various projects.

I want to use the opportunity of this debate tonight to put the record straight and to explain the Labour Party position. Some months ago, the Parliamentary Labour Party on seeing the unholy practice being carried out by the Fianna Fáil Government whereby Ministers, Deputies and Senators of that party were literally handing out cheques——

Mr. N. Treacy

That is not true.

Mr. Howlin

On the front page of my own local paper, one particular Oireachtas Member was photographed in the middle of a group announcing that he was delivering £30,000 for a project.

Mr. N. Treacy

Had he the cheque?

Mr. Howlin

The reality is that, if decided, Fianna Fáil could use this as a mechanism to buy votes. I have contributed to a number of health debates in the last 18 months and I have tried to underline for a Government that is increasingly out of touch with reality, the crisis in relation to the delivery of services in the health care area. I have tried to do the same in relation to Education and the Environment. In the area of health, a plethora of hospitals have been closed — 18 in all, since this administration came to power. A total of 14,070 beds in those hospitals have closed as have another 3,617 beds in hospitals that survived the axe. Thousands of jobs have gone and there has been a total dismantling of essential services.

In the area of Education we have seen infamous circulars trying to worsen education conditions by increasing pupilteacher ratios at every level and withdrawing essential support and ancillary staff that are required particularly among the disadvantaged.

In the area of the Environment, local authorities are now coming to terms with Estimates for next year which are further cut back by between five and eleven per cent on top of two years of savage cuts. Some local authorities are threatening to put up signs on some county roads indicating that the road has been abandoned by the local authority and inviting people to proceed at their own risk. Housing lists are growing at a rate we have not seen in two decades.

In the middle of all this crisis, anybody with a whit of morality would stand back and establish priorities for these resources that are becoming available in the State. The general public do not see golf clubs and many other projects as being of priority. It is difficult to justify the channelling of money to affluent resorts or to leisure institutions when people's lives are under threat because of the dismantling of the health services by this Government. In times of crisis there must be some priority. That is the view of the Labour Party in this issue of available funds. Already today, we have had a long debate on another windfall of money to the State. That £2 million to £3 million is to be subsumed into the Taoiseach's office. We in the Labour Party, sought to channel that into areas of need, but this Government want to keep their greedy hands in control so that only they can give out largesse and only they, without defined criteria——

Mr. N. Treacy

That is a function of Government.

Mr. Howlin

——can buy votes and be seen to be Santa Claus when it suits them. The attitude of the Opposition Parties is common. Every Opposition Deputy and a fair number of Government backbenchers have realised that there is huge resentment among the ordinary people to what is happening in the national lottery and that it will eventually impact on the lottery. People will simply stop supporting it if we cannot prove that the funds are channelled in the best interests of the Irish people in a fair and open way. All the Opposition Deputies are united in trying to achieve that.

There have been varying suggestions about how this worthy objective can be realised. The Labour Party support the notion of a motion. The Progressive Democrats published a Bill and thought that legislation was the only way to ensure fairness in this regard. Both those proposals have merits and demerits. The merits of the motion are that we would have had a decision this week on the issue. The Government would be faced with a decision of Dáil Éireann and unless they wanted to abandon democracy completely — and they are going towards that in the way they have treated other motions that came before the House — they would be under pressure of the democratic will of the elected representatives of the people to reform in this area. There are other merits in the notion of a motion. If a Bill were passed on Second Stage it would have to then proceed through Committee and Final Stages in this House and then go to the Seanad where the Government have a comfortable majority. Many of us, with some justification, are fearful that the Government would simply bury it and allow, through the passage of time, the slush fund to continue while the talk churned on in both these Houses. That is why we felt that the most effective and easiest way to achieve the reform desired, the reform which the public are demanding, was by way of a motion. We drafted a motion last week and sought to gain the support of other parties with some measure of success. Later in the week the Leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Spring, wrote to the leaders of all the political parties, including the Taoiseach, because we felt that there was a moral obligation on that party to reform in this area. It is important that the contents of that letter should be in the Official Report. The Leader of the Labour Party wrote in the following terms to each of the party leaders:

There is widespread agreement among the general public that there is a need for reform in the way in which the proceeds of the national lottery are administered. I believe that there is also agreement among most, if not all, political parties about the principle of such reform (if not necessarily about the detailed method). To that extent, the issue of accountable management of the lottery is an issue where party politics need not, and should not, intrude.

For several days now efforts have been made to secure all-Party agreement about a proposal to reform the administration of the lottery. The Labour Party Whip, Brendan Howlin TD, has been seeking support for the attached motion, which outlines a set of specific measures aimed at maintaining the fullest degree of confidence in the uses to which lottery money has been put. We believe that it would be possible to secure all-Party agreement around a motion along these lines. More to the point, we had intended also to submit this motion to the Fianna Fáil Party, as we can see no reason why any Party can take exception to realistic proposals on these lines.

In the event, it now appears possible that the issue will become one involving all-Party recrimination, rather than all-Party agreement. That will do damage to the lottery, and to politics generally. It is for that reason that I am writing to you (I will also be writing in similar vein to the other Party Leaders, including the Taoiseach) to attempt, even at this stage, to restore whatever degree of consensus can be found on the issue.

If the Private Members Bill proceeds next week, we will be supporting it at Second Stage, because we are committed to the principle of reform. However, it does seem likely that such a Bill would find it difficult to emerge unscathed from the Parliamentary process, since each Party will have its own ideas about future methods of administration. It is my own view that the opportunity should be given to the Government of the day to provide the reassurance that the public needs that the lottery will always be managed in the interests of the whole community, by initiating (or accepting) a more accountable method of administration.

I am therefore proposing that further acrimony and Party in-fighting on this issue should be avoided. The most sensible way to do this would be for each Party to nominate a representative to a small working group which would advise the Government on ways and means to ensure efficient and accountable administration of the lottery in future. The Government would then be in a position to promulgate a mechanism which would have all-Party support, and whose underlying purpose would be to ensure that the lottery will continue to have the widest possible level of public support.

While I am offering the attached motion as representing the sort of approach that we would consider desirable, the Labour Party would approach the subject with an open mind. The key issue for us is that those administering funds on behalf of the general public should always be seen to be accountable to the general public, and to be acting in the interests of the community as a whole.

I hope that you will give this proposals your urgent consideration. I will, as I said earlier, be writing to each Party Leader along similar lines. In the interests of trying to secure all-Party agreement, I suggest that the matter should be dealt with on a private basis for the time being (although obviously, the opportunity to deal with this issue on an all-Party basis will be much smaller once debate on a Private Members Bill gets under way).

Unfortunately the consensus did not emerge on co-sponsoring a joint motion but there are a few principles which need to be established. The Labour Party were anxious that a set proportion of lottery money should be targeted in law for each of the areas to benefit, for example, youth, sport, arts and culture, the Irish language, health, tourism, local amenities and any other areas that might need support now. In time of crisis some area might yield for the time being to other priority areas where there are life and death situations. We sought to have accountability whereby there would be a mechanism for the elected Members of this House to question and ensure that lottery funds were directed properly and administered correctly. The Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, has given a list of some of those who have benefited.

Mr. N. Treacy

The facts.

Mr. Howlin

I am not contesting that many of them are worthy of support. We on the Opposition benches are not arguing whether this beneficiary is worthy or unworthy. The Minister of State misses the point. We are talking about principles. Maybe these are things on which the Minister and his Party do not dwell overlong. Fundamental principles are at stake. This is not about whether X or Y is the better. There must be clear published guidelines and clear published objectives, defined recipients who should receive a defined percentage of money and specific channels through which the money should be issued. In the area of sport the money should be issued through COSPOIR and in arts through the Arts Council. We now have the crazy position where the same groups are applying to the national lottery and to the Arts Council and getting some money from each, with no overall control. I will cite instances if the Minister is confused.

Mr. N. Treacy

He is not. Where was all the collective wisdom in 1986?

Mr. Howlin

The other principle is to have clear application procedures. Perhaps the Minister will say whether it is a fact that of all the grants issued for community projects in the Dublin area, two-thirds were in the constituency of the Minister for Energy?

Mr. N. Treacy

A big constituency.

Mr. Howlin

Will he also confirm that two-thirds of those were given without previous application? If that is the sort of fairness and scrutiny that the Minister of State has in mind I fear for public confidence in the national lottery and its future support. There are other examples all over the country, but I do not want to trot them out for the entertainment of this House. It is a fact that in a Limerick constituency there was a bidding match between two Ministers. One Minister arrives at a meeting with an offer of X amount of money but was told that his constituency colleague, another Cabinet Minister, had offered twice as much. He was told to go away and come back with more and he did so. If that is the sort of gombeenism to which we want the national lottery to descend, we should carry on as if nothing is wrong. If we are interested in having a principled mechanism for distributing resources, which are scarce enough in this country, then we must carry out the necessary reforms we are seeking tonight.

I have said that we do not regard this Bill as ideal and that we in the Labour Party would do it in a different way if we had complete freedom of action in the matter. Nevertheless the principles are clear and we will not shirk our responsibility to the people who are clamouring for reform in this area. For that reason, when the Vote is called next Wednesday we will support this Bill on Second Stage, reserving the right to bring forward our own amendments subsequently. We are afraid that the mechanism being followed by the Progressive Democrats in producing this Bill will give a shield to the Government who may drag out the legislative process in this House and the other House while they carry on their gombeen tactics, falling over one another in constituencies up and down the country handing out largesse.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment (Mr. Connolly)

Then Wexford should not have got any money.

Mr. Howlin

The lottery fund was established to provide support for essential projects. It was not established to shore up the prospects of fading Fianna Fáil politicians or to launch fledgling Fianna Fáil politicians on the road to this House. If we have any degree of respect left for financial management and administration then there is hope even yet that the Government will in shame accept that the scandal of the national lottery must be addressed and that they will agree to outline some procedure or mechanism whereby fair criteria, a fair application procedure, a fair vetting system, a fair delivery mechanism and reporting system can be enacted into law. I hope that the morals of the Government party will urge them to address this crucial issue. I hope they will not be so out of touch with the reality on the ground and the needs and demands of the people that they will choose to ignore it once again.

Minister for Finance (Mr. MacSharry)

It is very interesting having listened to this debate last night in another place and here tonight to find the spokespersons on behalf of Fine Gael and Labour both saying that they will be supporting this Bill on Second Stage but then will cut it to pieces in different ways on Committee Stage. This means that at the end of the day there will be nothing left of the Progressive Democrats' proposed legislation. The purpose of the exercise is political opportunism.

I would like to start by giving some of the background and outlining the development of the national lottery so far, to put the present debate in context.

In 1984 the then Government decided to establish a national lottery, part of the proceeds of which would be allocated to the promotion of sport. Following on that decision, an international firm of consultants was commissioned to advise on the appropriate form the lottery should take in this country. It was decided that the lottery should be run by a company operating under licence, and that the lottery should be launched with an instant game, to be followed within a year by a Lotto game.

The legislation to enable the lottery to proceed was introduced in the Dáil in June 1986 and came into force on 15 July 1986. When the National Lottery Bill was introduced in the Dáil it did not, in its original form, specify the purposes for which lottery surpluses were to be applied. The relevant section — section 5 — said only that the moneys were to be applied to such general purposes as the Government might determine and that these purposes should be published in Iris Oifigiúil. It was also provided that the expenditure should be voted by the Oireachtas.

In the debate on the Bill, this section came in for a lot of criticism. Deputies were worried that the lottery surplus would simply disappear into the Exchequer and that there would be no actual benefit to the areas, particularly sport, for which the lottery had been set up. In response to this concern, the section was amended to its present form, which specifies that the funds shall be applied for the purposes of sport and other recreation, national culture, including the Irish language, the arts and the health of the community, and such other purposes as the Government may determine: any additional purposes that are included in the list are to be published in Iris Oifigiúil.

Since then, three items have been added to the list of eligible purposes: youth activities and amenity and welfare projects. Lottery expenditure is clearly identifiable so everyone can see that the lottery funds are going to support these specific areas.

The national lottery was launched on 23 March 1987 and was immediately a huge success. It caught the imagination of the people of Ireland and right from the first day it was apparent that it would be far more successful than anyone had ever dreamt. In the 1987 Revised Estimates Volume, we had included in the Vote for the Office of the Minister for Finance a subhead for the distribution of the national lottery surplus, in which we made provision for expenditure of £7 million. I gave the House details of how this sum was to be allocated in reply to a parliamentary question on 12 May 1987. The breakdown was as follows: £3.14 million for youth and sports projects; £1.75 million for arts, culture and Irish language; £2.1 million for projects in the health area.

As the year went by it became apparent that the amount raised would be far greater than the original £7 million. Towards the end of the year, in November 1987, we announced the allocation of a further £45 million to be spent in 1987 and 1988. It was at this stage that we decided to add amenity and welfare projects to the eligible beneficiary areas. The three purposes we have added — amenities, youth and welfare — complement the categories of sport and recreation and health which were listed in the original Act.

Finally, in the context of the 1988 Estimates and budget, the Government decided that some services within the beneficiary areas, which had previously been financed directly from departmental votes, should henceforth be funded from the lottery surplus. As a result of this decision, the following services, for example, are being funded from the lottery in 1988: the Cultural Relations Committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the grant-in-aid fund for cultural organisations operated by the Department of the Taoiseach; the scheme of grants to colleges providing courses in Irish, which is operated by the Department of Education; the scheme of grants to voluntary bodies operated by the Department of Social Welfare; and the Irish language publishing activities of the Department of Education. The availability of lottery funding has meant that these services and others in the beneficiary areas could be maintained at a time when all public spending has been under intense scrutiny and even the most desirable programmes have had to be cut back.

The total amount allocated by the Government from the lottery surplus so far amounts to £72.234 million, broken down as follows:

	£m
Sport and Recreation	19.018
Amenties	6
Youth	11.732
Arts and Culture	17.884
Health	10
Welfare (including Disaster Relief)	1.650
Irish Language	5.25
Dublin Millennium (for activities in the eligible categories)	0.7

The success of the national lottery has made possible an enormous expansion of the provision of sports and youth services and the development of new and improved sports facilities. Similarly, in the areas of arts and culture and the Irish language, lottery funding is being used to maintain and expand existing services and to finance major new projects which otherwise would not have been possible. For example, £1 million has been allocated for an Irish Language Centre at University College, Galway, £500,000 towards the construction of a Gallery of Modern Art at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, and £1 million to finance the activities of the recently established National Heritage Council.

In the health and welfare areas, the £10.85 million allocated from the lottery has made it possible to grant-aid a wide range of community and voluntary organisations engaged in caring for the elderly and the handicapped, which would not otherwise have been supported from public funds. Money has also been allocated for community information and development services, for special services for children at risk, and for AIDS prevention programmes, with emphasis on special measures to minimise the spread of infection among intravenous drug abusers.

I am very pleased that the Government have also been able to allocate £800,000 from the lottery for the relief of suffering caused by wars and natural disasters in developing countries. These are only a few examples from the broad range of activities that have been supported by lottery funds. I am confident that the vast majority of the people of the country are pleased at the success of the lottery and the way it has made it possible for the Government, even in the present difficult circumstances, to give practical support to local community initiatives as well as maintaining and expanding some services provided by central Government.

Some people have criticised the way in which the various grant schemes have been operated. In the first place, I would like to emphasise the enormous demand there is for all these schemes: thousands of applications have flooded in to the various Government Departments, most of them for projects that are highly desirable. The fact is that, even with the success of the lottery it is not possible to fund all of the applications.

All grants funded by the lottery, and indeed all other expenditure of the lottery surplus, is subject to the same accounting procedures as all other Government expenditure. The procedure that is followed is this: under section 8 of the National Lottery Act, 1986, the total proceeds of the sale of national lottery tickets, less the retail agents' commission and the smaller "instant" prizes which are paid by the retailer at the point of sale, are paid into the National Lottery Fund which is under my control. Any amounts required to meet larger prize payments and the operating expenses of the lottery are paid out from the fund to the National Lottery Company. The surplus remaining in the fund, after making provision for current and prospective liabilities, is available for transfer to the Exchequer, where it is brought in as non-tax revenue. It is my practice to bring in to the Exchequer only the amounts needed to cover expenditure on approved projects.

Under section 5 of the National Lottery Act, the Government determine the general purposes for which lottery funds are to be used and the amounts to be devoted to each purpose. Within those broad allocations the administration of the funds is primarily the responsibility of the Minister concerned.

In 1987 and 1988, the Estimate voted by the Dáil for the Office of the Minister for Finance included a subhead entitled "Fund for Distribution of the Surplus of the National Lottery". A similar provision has been made in the 1989 Estimates recently published. Since the spending programmes for which national lottery funds have been allocated are not within my Department's area of responsibility, the funds are issued from the Finance Vote to suspense accounts operated by the relevant spending Departments. The suspense accounts are audited, like all other Exchequer expenditure, by the Comptroller and Auditor General, who must be satisfied of the propriety of all transactions.

The accounting officer of each Department or Office is responsible for the operation of the suspense accounts under his control. Statements showing the operations on each suspense account are appended to each year's appropriation accounts.

Each of the Ministers involved is responsible for the expenditure of lottery funds in his area and is answerable to the Dáil for it. This is the system which Deputy Harney is now proposing to change, by means of the Bill which is now before the House.

Though some people may criticise the decisions made by spending Ministers on the allocation of grants — and where demand so greatly exceeds supply, there are bound to be a great many disappointed people — the fact remains that it is entirely appropriate for Ministers with departmental responsibility for sport and recreation, the arts, the Irish language, health, youth, amenities and welfare, to make the detailed decisions about public expenditure in their areas — within the general outlines decided by Government. As I have explained a moment ago, Ministers can be made to answer to the Dáil for their decisions.

In considering Deputy Harney's proposal to change the existing system the House must bear in mind that the amounts of money involved are very large. The surplus available to the Exchequer as a result of the first year's operations was over £40 million. This year we expect a slight fall below this figure, since we will not repeat the phenomenal sales of the first few months when the lottery was a novelty; but more than £30 million will be realised this year, and this will increase in future years. This is a great deal of money. Deputy Harney proposes to entrust its allocation effectively to a board consisting of a chairman and four members, one member each representing the interests of sport, the arts, the Irish language, health and welfare. The chairman, she says, should be a judge or retired judge of the High Court. I doubt the necessity of having a member of the Judiciary perform the essentially executive function of deciding on questions of public spending.

Then we come to the four ordinary members of the board. These would be selected by the Minister for Finance from three persons nominated by organisations representing each of the main beneficiary areas. The procedures for nomination are yet to be determined and specified in regulations. These four people would then have the power to decide on the allocation of lottery funds, subject to any general or specific directives they may be given by the Dáil.

We would, therefore, have four individuals, each of them very familiar with one of the beneficiary areas and probably quite unfamiliar with the other areas, selecting which of a host of competing applicants for grants should be successful. It is clear that the representative of each area would have a very large influence on the allocation in his area. It is hard, for example, to see the arts representative contradicting the recommendations of the health expert on the health area. So each member of the board would have effective control of a fund of six or eight or ten million pounds. I do not think it appropriate that unelected individuals should be given power to determine the spending of such large amounts of public money.

The board members, one can assume, would be people prominent and active in the areas which they will represent. They may be independent of the Government — though they will have been appointed by the Minister for Finance — but they would, by definition, be interested parties. How could they realistically be expected to be impartial? The pressures on an individual who is answerable to no one and who has several million pounds in his gift would be well-nigh irresistible. The independence and impartiality which the Deputy seeks to establish for the board, by, for example, having a judge as the chairman, in reality, would be highly questionable.

The board would, in effect, be accountable to no one. The extraordinarily unwieldy system provided for in this Bill would operate like this: first, the Minister for Finance would propose a draft directive to the Dáil, outlining general or specific rules to be given to the board. The board would then deliberate and, having regard to the rules laid down in the directive, would issue a certificate to the Minister for Finance setting out what payments he is to make and to whom. The Minister for Finance would then be obliged to comply with these requests within 14 days. In certain restricted circumstances he might make a Ministerial order cancelling the certificate, on the grounds that it did not comply with the law or with the directives given by the Dáil, that it was not in the public interest, or that there was not enough lottery revenue available to cover the payments. Such an order could be rejected by the Dáil. If the Dáil reinstated the board's certificate, the Minister would have no option but to comply.

The normal prudent management of public money involves such principles as not issuing money until it is required. In this system the Minister for Finance would not be able to operate such controls, or indeed any controls; he would be simply a puppet obeying the instructions of the board. The Minister, who would remain accountable to the Dáil for the proper and prudent use of lottery moneys, since they would still be a charge on the Finance Vote, would have no real control; while the board, which would have full effective control, would be answerable to no one. The Bill would require the board to present an annual report to the Minister, who would then lay it before the Dáil; but there the board's responsibility would end. No matter what decisions they might make, the board could not be made to answer to the Dáil for them.

The effect of this would be that the Ministers with responsibility for national policy on sport, youth, the arts and the other areas, would have no say over the spending of large amounts of public money in those areas and the expenditure would be in the hands of a few powerful and interested individuals.

Not that these individuals would be entirely without support. The Bill provides that the board may appoint a secretary and other officers necessary for the performance of their duties, and that the costs and expenses of the board should be paid from the national lottery surplus. So, at a time when this Government, and most other Members of this House, are agreed on the imperative need to reduce public spending, and when the Government have taken active and imaginative steps to reduce the numbers of staff in the public service, in order to bring the huge and growing public service pay bill under control, the Deputy now proposes that we should set up another public service agency — with staff and premises and overhead costs — to perform a function which is already being performed at no extra cost by the staffs of Government Departments.

I should now like to deal with a few points which were raised. Deputy Noonan made several inaccurate remarks on which I should like to comment. He is under the impression that this year's Estimates and public capital programme provide for an expenditure of £93 million of lottery revenue and that £55 million is provided for next year. This is a basic misunderstanding. This year's Estimates include £60 million for the distribution of national lottery surplus and £33 million of this is allocated for capital spending. The amount shown in the public capital programme is not additional to the amount voted in the Estimates but is the capital element of that amount.

Similarly, the provision for the distribution of a national lottery surplus in 1989 is £40 million of which £15 million is provided for capital expenditure. Because Deputy Noonan completely misunderstood the figures, he thinks that the sales of national lottery tickets are showing a serious fall. We anticipate that gross sales in 1988 will be at or above the 1987 level and that they will continue to improve in the coming years. The reason for the drop in the 1989 provision below the 1988 level is that, in 1988, we had effectively two years' revenue to spend. The surplus of the national lottery in 1987 and the interest earned by the national lottery fund came to £42.1 million of which £10.815 million was spent in 1987. That left £31.3 million to be carried forward to 1988. The 1989 Estimate does not, naturally, have the benefit of such a carry-over.

Deputy Noonan does not seem to be aware of the present range of activities eligible for support from lottery funds. He referred to a Fine Gael policy document which proposed to make four new areas eligible for lottery funds. These include three areas which are already eligible. Fine Gael want to give assistance to organisations catering for physically and mentally handicapped persons, to give grants for the provision of amenities to promote tourism and to assist special needs such as disaster relief. We are already doing all these things.

The allocation of funds we announced last November specifically mentioned that assistance would be given to organisations catering for the handicapped and providing funds for amenity grants. The House will be aware that the Government have since allocated funds for disaster relief. I might also mention, in relation to the Fine Gael proposals, although Deputy Noonan professes to dislike quangos — and one of his objections to the proposal of the Progressive Democrats is that they involve setting up a new quango to back up the board of trustees — his party are now proposing to set up two new bodies, a national youth board and a sports and recreation council. Deputy Noonan criticised the Progressive Democrats' Bill in terms very similar to my criticism of it but he went on to signal that his party will support the Second Reading of the Bill.

It is unique in my experience that a party which have expressed themselves as opposed to the broad purposes of a Bill, in the debate on the Second Reading, should then, flying in the face of all logic, vote for it. This, I think, has been the essence of this whole exercise for quite some months. The debate is an exercise in political opportunism on the part of all of the Opposition parties. The procedures and controls, both on the operation of the lottery itself and the disbursements of the surplus, are those set out in the National Lottery Act, 1986, which was introduced by our predecessors. Yet far from welcoming the success of the lottery in generating funds for many worthwhile community-based initiatives throughout the length and breadth of the country which would not otherwise have got off the ground, they are undermining its future development through a series of baseless accusations. Not one person, either in this House or outside it, has claimed that projects which have received lottery funding were not entitled to or were not worthy of support under the grant conditions laid down. I cannot emphasise this point too strongly.

It is an inescapable fact that where the volume of grant applications is way above the funds available there must be many disappointed applicants. This is true whether the deciding agency is a Government Minister or an independent agency. Decision making by an independent agency will not of itself soften the blow for a disappointed applicant. Indeed the creation of an independent agency would deny disappointed applicants an avenue of redress which exists under existing arrangements, effective mediation on their behalf by their elected representatives. In this sense the draft Bill will diminish rather than enhance the sovereignty of the Dáil.

There is much more that could be said about this Bill but suffice it to conclude as I started. It is nothing but an exercise in political opportunism. If one were to trace the events surrounding these proposed pieces of legislation or motions from different parties and the efforts that were made last week to get agreement, not on how things might change but agreement to defeat the Government in the Dáil, one would find that no other purpose is intended in this exercise here this week or next week. When this matter was discussed by the Fine Gael Party a couple of weeks ago one of the first questions asked of them was if there was anybody there who would want to support the legislation as proposed by the Progressive Democrats but not one Deputy supported it then.

Mr. Creed

That is totally untrue.

Mr. MacSharry

What changed their minds is what I have said at the start and how I will conclude and that is the political opportunism of the parties here on this issue because they cannot, and are not in a position to, in any way find fault with the Government economic policies as they are being pursued. Nor can they find any fault with the expenditure of over £70 million of lottery funding. I challenge everybody in this House, and particularly the members of Fine Gael, the Progressive Democrats, the Labour Party and others, to go around the country to the thousands of people, groups and organisations who have got grants and to bring back one example of one pound that was allocated by any source, Government or otherwise, that was or is being spent wrongly. As I have said, not one Deputy has suggested this.

Mr. Farrelly

That backbenchers got nothing.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. MacSharry

After searching for six solid months they cannot find anywhere in this country one area where there is any suggestion of a misappropriation of funds.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would advise Deputy Farrelly that before his arrival we had a peace and tranquility which is in accordance with the best order here.

Mr. Farrelly

We are giving the facts.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If Deputy Farrelly is not disposed to listening he has the alternative in his own feet — he can remove himself from the Chamber.

Mr. Farrelly

You informed me of that before.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

If Deputy Farrelly continues to interrupt the proceedings I will ask him to leave the House.

Mr. M. Brennan

He is well used to heckling.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You will get a suitable opportunity of making your own contribution. I would ask all Members that we give audience to whoever is delivering their thoughts to the House.

Mr. Farrelly

We just wanted to inform the Minister that we got only £4 per head of population in Meath in comparison with £27 per head in Sligo.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You will get a suitable opportunity to contribute.

Mr. N. Treacy

Deputy Bruton will mature the Deputy if he listens to him.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We are sorry about the Meathmen but we are not going to have another All-Ireland here. The Minister has four minutes.

Mr. MacSharry

I would like to remind Deputies who run around calculating how much each county got per head of population that that is absolutely ridiculous. When people mention my own constituency they talk about £27 per head of population. That includes £1 million for a regional development for sport activity which is one of the areas that was selected by this Government. The previous Government did not see any part of Ireland above a line from Dublin to Galway but at least this Government know that there is somewhere above that line and below it as well. As far as the national lottery is concerned, I would like to say in conclusion that it will be successful this year and next year. The Government of the day will continue to make allocations and the Ministers of that Government will continue to make decisions, whether they be Ministers from this side of the House as it is now or from that side of the House in the future. Regardless of what political opportunism might show up next week I would not stand over a situation where one or two people, who found opinion polls going against them in the summer, jumped on a band wagon about lottery expenditure.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment (Mr. Connolly)

And fall off the wagon when it suits them.

Mr. MacSharry

Those people who are coming together and opposing the Government on this issue or supporting the Progressive Democrats are saying that this is not an election issue and there is no need to have an election on it. Who do they think they are kidding? If political parties in this House think they can come in here week in and week out with issues that they say they are going to come together on to try to defeat the Government and think that that will not undermine the stability that exists in this economy because of the great work being done by this Government over the last two years, then they are mistaken. Let it be quite clear from this side of the House to all on that side of the House that we, at any time that you cause it or that we decide it, are well prepared to face the public at large and will have no hesitation in doing so.

Mr. Farrelly

Are we saying these are the dying days of this Administration?

Mr. N. Treacy

The Deputy is hoping that they are not.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I wish to indicate to the House that the Chair will be insisting that Deputy O'Malley gets the audience that any Member is entitled to get when he addresses this House.

Mr. D. O'Malley

By far the most interesting and most valuable part of the Minister for Finance's contribution tonight was the very end of it. That was very significant. I am delighted to hear that there is a possibility that a general election might be fought in the very near future on the question of the abuse or otherwise of national lottery funds. That is something that I had not anticipated. It is a general election that, quite frankly, I would relish.

Mr. MacSharry

Your spokesperson did not relish it last night.

Mr. D. O'Malley

So far as the allegation that we dreamed this matter up during the summer is concerned, I see that the Bill was ordered by Dáil Éireann to be printed on 18 May 1988. That was when it got its First Reading. It was introduced some time around the middle of April last which is approximately seven months ago. This is not something that has been concocted in the last few weeks, months or anything like it. It is a Bill that we have had ready for a very long time because the scandal that is going on is not of just recent origin. Unfortunately, it has been going on for a very long time. The only difference is that, even with all the publicity that was given to it and so on, it does not seem to be abating or likely to abate. That is a great pity.

I listened very carefully to the Minister for Finance reading out lists of global figures tonight of amounts paid out under this, that and the other heading. I have no doubt they are all correct and nobody disputes that £X million were paid out under such a heading and £Y million under another heading and all the rest of it, but that is just about where reality ends so far as the Minister for Finance is concerned or, indeed, so far as the Minister for Education in her speech last night is concerned. Listening to the Minister for Finance tonight it was impossible to believe he was talking about this system going on in the same country that I see it going on in or in the same country where people are complaining from top to bottom and from one side of it to the other.

It will be a matter of great interest to political sociologists who might come to examine some of the socio-political aspects of Irish life in years to come to read the provincial papers in particular and some of the national papers that have appeared in the past nine months. It will certainly make interesting reading. For example, I would suggest that if one wanted really to savour what things are like — and they are pretty different from the picture painted by the Minister for Finance — they get out the files of the Limerick Leader, preferably the country edition published on Thursdays because that is by far the more interesting one. This matter unfortunately, does not arise very much in the city or the city end of that county, but to read of the goings on in the western part of that county would certainly open your eyes to a remarkable situation that is a million miles from the scenario described here tonight by the Minister for Finance or by the Minister for Education last night where week after week two members of the Government are attacking each other about the disbursement of the lottery funds, where bemused members of the public and bemused recipients are giving interviews to the papers saying they are rather embarrassed by it all, that in many cases they had not made an application and were rather astounded to find a Minister descending on them with a cheque for funds they had made no formal application for. This goes on week after week in that newspaper alone, and in some of the other and in cuttings I have seen from them, while it is not quite as exciting in other counties as it is in the western end of County Limerick, it is interesting.

Mr. McGinley

What about Tipperary?

Mr. D. O'Malley

There was a big bonanza in Tipperary on a particular day——

(Interruptions.)

Mr. D. O'Malley

The large heading in the Tipperary newspaper concerned was "O'Kennedy's £87,000".

Mr. F. Fahey

I will tell you about Deputy Keating's bonanza.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Farrelly

Deputy Fahey said he would do something about the emigrants and he did nothing.

Mr. D. O'Malley

The position in Tipperary was so good that we had a spectacle on televisions recently of a senior Minister in this Government marching at the head of a band to celebrate the good news that was about to befall different parts of his constituency. I thought, with a number of people, that it was rather fascinating in that there is apparently now an acceptance in some quarters that the disbursement of public moneys is to be regarded as an act of personal munificence by the distributor who applies his own subjective criteria which never have to include necessarily either need or merit. It is gombeenism gone mad. It evokes the unsavoury world of nods, winks and political backhanders.

After 65 years of our independence the citizens of this country if they want to apply for public assistance for some project of public merit and value that they want to undertake are entitled to do that on the basis that as citizens of this country they have equal rights with any other citizens and they can go and look for something on the basis of the need of the project and the merit of the project. They are entitled as Irish citizens under our Constitution not to have to act like 19th century peasants approaching a gombeen man with their cap in their hand virtually on their knees, begging and pleading as a favour to them from an omnipotent and omniscient TD that they should be entitled to some kind of financial assistance for some project that they and others are pursuing in their own locality. I had hoped we had put that sort of approach behind us, that we could deal with citizens on an equal and fair basis.

Mr. Connolly

Did the Deputy make any representations himself?

Mr. D. O'Malley

Unhappily——

Mr. Connolly

Did the Deputy make any representations himself?

Mr. D. O'Malley

I am perfectly entitled to make representations——

Mr. Connolly

The Deputy is a hypocrite.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. D. O'Malley

——but I find it a waste of time. If somebody is denied what I consider to be their rights by comparison with others I am perfectly entitled and, indeed, I have a duty to make such representations.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. MacSharry

Your board will not listen to you.

Mr. Connolly

Does the Deputy remember the time he went to Limerick and he would not go unless he had something to open for the IDA?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Minister of State——

Mr. Connolly

We do not like hypocrites.

Mr. Farrelly

Are you the person who went to open a thrift account?

Mr. D. O'Malley

That is another feature of the western part of County Limerick. It is not relevant to the present discussion.

Mr. MacSharry

You tried to get rid of this.

Mr. Connolly

And you failed. You continued too far.

Mr. D. O'Malley

It is a rather unique institution. Let me give an example in regard to the arts and the position in the arts which is one of the main headings that are supposed to be assisted under these funds that have become available from the national lottery. Over each of the last three years there have been cuts in the grant-in-aid to the Arts Council. The most substantial of the cuts was this year when it amounted to 13 per cent of the already reduced figure of last year. An assurance is given that the shortfall, and, indeed a great deal more, will be made up by funds that will be made available from the lottery. What happens in practice is that the funds are not made available to the Arts Council, at all, and people whom the Arts Council are not able to help have then to go and besiege the Taoiseach's Department for assistance. They are then assessed, apparently by different criteria from those used by the Arts Council, and money may or may not be given to them. It may be and sometimes is given to them in the teeth of policy decisions and advice of the Arts Council. It seems crazy that we should be in this position. In that situation the money should be given to the Arts Council and the Arts Council should then be allowed to disburse it in the best way for the arts generally, but that is not done.

There was an interesting report in The Irish Times of last Saturday where the Arts Council indicated that they were extremely anxious to support touring theatre companies who need support because it is uneconomic to tour in this country due to the fact that many of the theatres outside Dublin are too small. Nineteen companies, no less, had applied for assistance to tour in the first six months of next year. The Arts Council had to turn the whole lot of them down even though they are very anxious to assist them. They are now told that they can go to the Taoiseach's Department. There is absolutley no sense or reason to it.

We had, only today, a rather small Bill, the debate on which developed into a very interesting one. It exhibited precisely the same syndrome as we have had exhibited by the Government at large in relation to trust funds which become available suddenly for distribution here. Instead of laying down the manner in which the sum of £2.75 million approximatley would be distributed, that Bill, as introduced here this morning, simply laid down that the Taoiseach would direct where the money was to be paid.

It seems to me that there is a serious difficulty in this Government accepting that if one is distributing public moneys, whatever their source, whether it is taxation or otherwise, one has to do it according to certain rules and that if one does not there is a danger of considerable abuse, and if there is a danger of considerable abuse there is a danger of very considerable criticism. That is the position the Government find themselves in today. They are the authors of their own misfortunes. It is not that they did not foresee that this was possible because it is interesting to see what the present Minister of State, Deputy Leydon, had to say in the debate on the National Lottery Bill, 1986 in this House, the one that we are now seeking to amend. As reported at column 1782 of the Official Report for 1 July, 1986, the Minister said:

A limit should be prescribed for the overheads of a company and we should be told how much will be allocated to sporting and cultural organisations. There should be a clear indication whether it is the intention to establish a representative body to administer the proceeds so that it will become clear that it will not be organised on a party political basis or that grants will not be awarded in a purely political way. That would politicise the national lottery and would be detrimental to its success if it was clearly seen by the public that the funds which accrued would be used by the Government for party political reasons in the constituencies.

I must compliment the Minister of State on his foresight because he painted, in July of 1986, a picture that was virtually a photograph of things as they were to be in this country in July 1988. It is not everyone that has such incredibly accurate foresight as the Minister of State proved to have on that occasion. He foresaw certain dangers. He set out what they were, how undesirable they would be, the damage that they would do and so on, if that Bill was not amended in the way he suggested. He was absolutely and totally correct under all headings.

We suggest that the Act of 1986 be amended. We are not hung up on the detail, as Deputy Harney has already made clear, of how that amendment might be made. We have no hangups about the detail of it. What we do want to do — and we have wanted to do it since last March or April when we published this Bill first — is to ensure that there is some independent decision-making power in regard to lottery funds and that there is some accountability. People object to the idea of a High Court judge which is one of the possible types of chairman that has been suggested here, and I can accept that. I do not think a High Court judge is necessarily ideal for this at all. We were very keen to try to give the public a confidence in this system that they do not have.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. D. O'Malley

A recent article was written by Dr. T. K. Whitaker on the national lottery, the way it has turned out, the difficulties and abuses and so on that have arisen and the ways to over-come them. He suggested that perhaps, because the amount was now so big, it could be treated as ordinary revenue and that it should not be treated in this special way under this Act as it now is. That is a point of view. I am not sure that he is absolutely right, but at least it is a point of view. Dr. T.K. Whitaker, for example, would be an ideal man to head up any kind of board of trustees or anything else to see that things were done fairly and to stop the scandalous abuse that is going on at present. If all the various criteria and checks and balances have been complied with as the Minister for Finance suggests to us tonight and as the Minister for Education suggested last night, some officials in the Departments and some Ministers, for example, the Minister for the Environment, must have extraordinary powers of perception, given that they were able to allot funds from the lottery even to organisations that had not made application. That amazes me when I hear from the Minister for Finance tonight that thousands and thousands of organisations apply and that many thousands naturally have to be disappointed. Of course they have, but it does seem remarkable that some of those who did not apply were not disappointed. I wonder how the Government explains, for instance, the fact that up to last May, 15 of the 49 groups in Dublin county who received lottery grant approval from the Department of the Environment had not made any formal application for lottery assistance, and what an amazing coincidence it is, too, that of those 49 applications approved in Dublin no fewer than 26 of them should come from the Dublin North constituency of another Cabinet member, the Minister for Energy, Deputy Ray Burke. The remarkable thing about it is that the Dublin North constituency, so far as my recollection goes, is the only three-seat constituency in Dublin under the present disposition; therefore it is the smallest constituency in Dublin and has the smallest population in Dublin. Notwithstanding that, it gets more than half of the approvals in the entire Dublin region and more than ten other constituencies combined. There are some amazing coincidences here surely, and some objective criteria have to be put forward to enable a careful examination to make sure that the applications approved are approved on the basis that they are fully examined before that approval is given.

I was amazed to see in March of this year a letter received by Limerick County Council giving a long list of projects or grants which had been approved for payment under this lottery scheme for amenity grants and so on applicable to the Department of the Environment. The information which was given to the county council was set out under a number of headings. One of the headings concerned the people with whom the county council or anybody else who was interested should get in touch in connection with a grant. In five cases the Department of the Environment were unable to say who the people involved were and put in that column, the words, "ask Limerick County Council." Limerick County Council were mystified and circulated their own members seeking the same information. It seems to me that it is very hard, therefore, for either the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Education to urge that these projects and the criteria underlying them were properly and objectively examined and evaluated before decisions were made to pay grants under the lottery scheme to these various recipients. I do not think that anybody in County Limerick, or in any other part of the country, is codded by that because they are amazed at what we might charitably call the rather subjective approach to the way these things are being done.

Debate adjourned.