Deputy Eric Byrne gave me notice of his intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter as to the effect the decision of the Minister for the Environment is having on Dublin City Council by having the council process all national lottery amenity grant applications before 15 January next.
Adjournment Debate. - Amenity Grant Applications.
I am not sure in which manner I should approach this debate. I was inclined to think that I should adopt an adversarial approach to condemn the Minister out of hand and make allegations of sharp practice by the Minister. However, I decided it might just about be possible if I made a reasoned argument that the Minister would feel disposed to take on board my suggestions and make the necessary changes in the method of the allocations of national lottery funding under the amenity grants scheme.
The Minister will be aware that before I was elected to this House an almighty outcry raged about how national lottery money was being dispersed. Some people argued that the Minister was making allocations to unworthy projects, golf clubs and the like, others implied that grants were being allocated and credit for successful applications was being claimed by local dignitaries. The Minister's Coalition colleagues were to the fore in this outcry.
The Minister sought the opinion of an all-party Dáil committee who reported and recommended an alternative approach in order to remove the feeling of ministerial and political opportunism and patronage. We in Dublin City Council yesterday debated the circular from Séamus O'Connor on behalf of the Minister outlining the Minister's instructions on how to assist him in the dispersal of £5.5 million under the combined amenities and recreational facilities grants scheme 1990. The following facts emerged.
The 177 grant applications in the possession of Dublin Corporation came to a total of £8 million in value. Dublin Corporation have not as yet received from the Minister's Department or the Department of Education their combined list of some hundreds of applications, I am told reliably, which we are supposed to process and make recommendations on to the Minister on or before 15 January next. It is possible that these missing applications represent as much as another £8 million, making a possible total of £18 million to £20 million in respect of applications for which only £5.5 million is available to be dispersed nationally. By the way, these were the numbers we were talking about before we in Dublin Corporation publicly advertised the scheme. At the moment every local authority, each county council and each county borough corporation are running around in a paper chase absorbing huge numbers of man hours and raising local grant application hopes, all without the benefit of knowing whether their area will qualify for even one penny of the £5.5 million.
I am asking the Minister to make block grants available to the local authorities who will administer the scheme at local level. In that way nobody can say the Minister is administering the scheme to his own or his party's political advantage. It would represent a real boost for local democracy. While he retains the authority of making the allocations himself he will always be suspected of having a vested interest and he will be seen to have local authorities running around doing all the paperwork for him but with no power to make allocations. I am asking the Minister to make one third of all future allocations to Dublin by way of a block grant. Given the size and population of the Dublin region, this would be a fair allocation of lottery funding. We in Dublin Corporation have the staff available through our area community officers, field staff and workers in our community development departments, who are used to and trained to impartially grant aid suitable projects. Because of the financial under-funding of Dublin Corporation the major and minor grants schemes amounting to approximately £300,000 annually, have been abolished. I hope the Minister will agree that in the case of Dublin Corporation we, the local authority, should administer and allocate out of a block grant the funds from the national lottery.
In conclusion I am arguing for two changes in the new scheme; first, that the Minister should make block grants to local authorities for them to administer and allocate and, second, that the Minister should extend by at least one month the date on which local authorities must make recommendations to him — that is 15 January — given that the local authorities are heading into the Christmas period, that they have come out of very heavy estimates debates and that they are short of staff. They request that the Minister extend the date so that the scheme can be handled effectively by them.
The Government decided in late October 1989 that the amenity grants scheme administered by my Department and the recreational facilities grants scheme administered by the Department of Education are to be amalgamated into a single scheme and that grants under this scheme are to be allocated by the Minister for the Environment to projects recommended by local authorities who would be responsible for processing applications. It was also decided that £5.5 million is to be allocated to the new scheme in 1990. What has happened since the Government decision which was announced by the Minister for Finance in his reply to a number of parliamentary questions on 24 October 1989 is that all applications already made to my Department under the amenity grants scheme or to the Department of Education under the recreational facilities grants scheme, are being transmitted to the relevant local authorities for consideration under the new scheme. This necessarily takes time but we hope to have the process completed by the coming weekend.
The conditions attaching to the new scheme have also been issued to city and county managers. Specimen fact sheets which are designed to give financial and other information about projects which are the subject of applications for grants have already been sent to local authorities. Therefore, by this weekend each local authority will have the necessary documentation to enable them to process both existing and new applications for grants under the new scheme. It is a matter for each local authority to consider the arrangements. It may be appropriate at local level to advise the public of the new schemes. However, such has been the interest in the amenity grants schemes in recent years that a specific public advertisement may not be required; but under the new arrangements notified on 20 November 1989 to county and city managers, each county council, county borough corporation and Dún Laoghaire Corporation will categorise applications and prepare a list of all those which they are prepared to recommend.
My Department's circular asked that the list be considered and approved by the elected members and submitted with relevant fact sheets to the Department by 15 January 1990. I do not consider this deadline unreasonable. In deciding on it I was conscious of the desirability of ensuring early allocations of grants to enable the projects chosen to be properly planned and processed during the good weather. There is no other significance in the date chosen. As far as Dublin Corporation is concerned, I have had no representations from the corporation——
Our last meeting was yesterday.
——good, bad or indifferent that the deadline is causing a problem. I understand, however, that the corporation have recently arranged to have a special meeting on 19 January 1990 to discuss the matter.
That is a special meeting.
In the circumstances——
It is not a full city county meeting, you realise that, Minister.
Please, Deputy Byrne, let us hear the Minister's reply without interruption.
In the circumstances I am surprised at the Deputy's insistence in pursuing the matter today. The Government have tried to modify the amenity grants scheme to meet the complaints, real or imagined, about the 1988 scheme and the Deputy now appears to be trying to score cheap political points arising from these changes.
That is not so.
Worse, if the Deputy's point was conceded, the effect would be to frustrate local communities in their efforts to get worthwhile projects under way. The Deputy, of course, wants to tie up the whole scheme in a bureaucratic maze and I wonder what ulterior motive he has in this matter.
The contribution he has made here this afternoon has nothing whatever to do with the motion down in his name. It is all about cheap political shots being taken by him. When he is further considering the matter he might remember that when a previous Minister for the Environment was dividing out amenity grant schemes under the Department's head, he left out 11 counties with no allocation at all. I regard that kind of allocation of funds as entirely and totally disproportionate but if the Deputy was to concern himself a little more closely with the kind of funding I provided from last year's allocation, he would see that Dublin Corporation and Dublin County Council got a great allocation, way beyond what would be regarded as a fair entitlement considering the total available at my disposal. However, that is the way it is with some Deputies.
In so far as the processing of applications under the new scheme may cause staffing difficulties, the Deputy is, I am sure, fully aware that the management of the various services and functions of the corporation is primarily a matter for the local authority itself. The manager has complete discretion as to the most effective manner to deploy staff. I am sure that the manager makes every effort to ensure that adequate staffing is assigned in particular to priority work areas and that the corporation are continuing to take steps to ensure that staff resources are deployed in the most effective manner possible.
I have no involvement in the day to day administration of the corporation and, indeed, it would be totally inappropriate for me to assume any such role. I have every confidence in the ability of Dublin Corporation, both management and staff, to ensure that the relatively straightforward work involved in processing amenity grants applications will be carried out speedily and effectively. What the Minister wants to do is to get on with the job——
He has no power. There has been no change since the all-party committee——
Please Deputy Byrne was allowed to make his contribution without interruption. The Minister must be accorded the same facility.
All I am saying is that this Minister gave a very generous allocation, not only to his constituency but to the whole Dublin area, and the Deputy might be mindful of that when he is casting aspersions on how the money was divided last year, particularly taking into consideration the way it was divided by previous Ministers. I want to spend the £5.5 million as quickly as possible and to give communities an opportunity to get on with the projects. Of course, the applications will far outweigh the amount of money available to the Minister——
Why does the Minister not make the allocation by means of a lump sum? Does he not trust them?
Deputy Byrne, I must ask you to desist.
I would advise the Deputy he is not at a corporation meeting now. I would say to him that what he proposes to do is to seek to frustrate the communities he represents.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.30 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 12 December 1989.