Vol. 425 No. 8
7 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance the proposals, if any, which are in place to allocate funds from the national lottery during 1993; if he will give details of the proposed allocations, distinguishing between funds going to sports and recreational, health, promotion of the Irish language, and amenity grants; and the agencies through which grants will be allocated.
15 Mr. Deenihan asked the Minister for Finance if he intends to restore funding from the national lottery for the amenity grants scheme in 1993.
23 Mr. Barrett asked the Minister for Finance the proposals, if any, which are in place to allocate funds from the national lottery during 1993; if he will give details of the proposed allocations, distinguishing between funds going to sports and recreational, health, promotion of the Irish language, and amenity grants; and the agencies through which grants will be allocated.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 15 and 23 together.
Details of the Government's 1993 allocations of national lottery funds will be set out in the forthcoming abridged volume of the Estimates for Public Services. The national lottery appendix in that volume summarises the expenditure for national lottery-funded programmes across all Government Departments. It would not be appropriate to answer questions on specific schemes in advance of the publication of the Government's proposals.
Has the Government taken action to ensure that voluntary groups who are providing essential services, which all of us would want to see funded permanently, should not be dependent on arbitrary allocations from the lottery. Could I ask her further if the Government accepts that greater priority in the allocation of national lottery funds should go to health, as has been the almost universal wish of the public when surveyed on this subject?
The Deputy will have an opportunity to debate specific allocations to Government Departments and to individual services with the Ministers concerned when the Estimates are debated in this House, including the allocations being made as part of those Estimates from lottery funding.
Is the Minister of State aware that when this national lottery was set up it was not money that belonged to the Government? It was a clear decision that the lottery would be set up for given purposes and there is a Government decision in relation to the setting up of the lottery. One was that 50 per cent would go to sport and recreation, another percentage would go to the promotion of the Irish language and the remainder would go to the health services to compensate voluntary organisations who, because of the introduction of the national lottery, would lose out on their own fund raising activites. Therefore, for the Minister of State to say we should wait for the Book of Estimates is not answering the question. The question is: is this Government making a policy decision that a certain percentage of the national lottery funds will be allocated to sport and recreation, another percentage to the promotion of the Irish language and culture and the arts, and the remainder to the health services? The Government either has a policy or it has not.
I appeal for brevity, for the obvious reason of making some progress at Question Time today.
My Question No. 23 deals with this matter. It is being taken with No. 7. The whole purpose of the question is to try to establish Government policy in relation to the allocation of national lottery funds. It has now become something——
The Deputy is embarking on a speech. This is not good enough.
——which was never envisaged. It is not taxpayers' money.
I must call on tAire Stait to reply.
The question which the Deputy asked was in relation to the plans to allocate the funds. Those plans will be revealed on the 17th when the Book of Estimates will be published. At that stage the Deputy will be in a position to question the individual Ministers concerned in relation to the policy proposals in their own areas. He will be able to ask all the questions, which I know he is dying to ask, in relation to Government policies in the health areas in respect of voluntary bodies, and so on. He will be able to see the Government decisions in relation to the allocation of lottery funding under the different headings, such as the promotion of the Irish language, sport, recreation and so on.
There will not be a slush fund.
Would the Minister of State consider adopting a new approach in view of the high level of concern about the way lottery funding has been allocated in the past? Would the Minister consider allocating that responsibility to local authorities where there would be less danger of abuse? There would also be an opportunity to prioritise projects within a particular locality and to enable public accountability at local level. I wonder if it would be possible in a case like this to apply the principle of subsidiarity.
I share the Deputy's concern that the allocation of funds from the lottery would be very transparent and the procedures absolutely above board. The criteria by which any organisation would receive lottery funding would be very clear. The reality has been in the last couple of years in relation to amenity grants, which I think are grants the Deputy is referring to, and which the Deputy wants to be spent by local authorities, that the funding in this area has been in respect of projects to which there were commitments given a number of years ago. We were talking last year about carry-over funding and if and when new funding becomes available it may well be appropriate to look at the mechanisms by which these funds are distributed.
(Limerick East): I would like to congratulate the Minister of State on the occasion of her first Question Time. I would like to ask the Minister if she is replying today in her capacity as Minister of State at the Department of The Tánaiste or Minister of State at the Department of Finance? Secondly, would she indicate if part of her responsibility is the allocation of lottery funds and the formation of policy in connection with the lottery or is she merely answering on behalf of spending Departments by way of giving the House information? Does she have a specific remit to deal with the expenditure of lottery funds and the formation of the policy which underpins that?
I am answering these questions in my capacity as a Minister of State at the Department of Finance. The question which was asked was basically a statistical one about the distribution of funds. Those statistic will be made available next week with the publication of the Estimates.
What about policy considerations?
Can the Minister give an undertaking that the proposed expenditure of lottery funds this year will not incorporate a replacement of expenditure for which various Departments already have statutory responsibility?
The distribution of lottery funds is being carried out by the Government in accordance with Government policy. That distribution will be seen next week. There will be an opportunity then to debate those Estimates and to pursue the points being made in relation to amenity grants, sports grants and so on, with the individual Ministers concerned.
(Limerick East): The pressure of running a school tour——
Expanding on bureaucracy.
Could the Minister of State indicate the total amount transferred from the Central Bank to the Department of Finance of surplus lottery funding during 1992? She probably has the information with her.
I understand that the total amount of lottery funding in 1992 was of the order of £100 million. It is anticipated that there will be less money available in the current year because the lottery has not been raking in the "shekels" to the same extent.
Has the horse bolted, so to speak, in respect of the 1993 allocations, or does she, as Minister of State, still have some opportunity to influence the shape of that allocation? This is why we put down this question. It was to obtain an opportunity to push the Minister's thinking in a particular direction in the way this money would be seen to be transparent on the one hand and go to services of recognised priority.
As I have already indicated to the House, the distribution of the money among different policy headings is being looked at alongside the distribution of money sourced in the normal way through other Government revenues in the preparation of the Government's spending Estimates.
Perhaps the Minister of State could give us a hint about——
I think we got a hint.
——what allocations will be made through the various agencies, as the question asks, after the Government has decided on allocations to the various areas. Will she be using agencies to dispense this money on an independent basis, or will it be done on the same basis as the previous Government did it — a nod and a wink? If you know a Minister you have a better chance than if you do not.
The allocations will be made under various subheads to different Departments. The Departments concerned will be responsible to this House for the spending of money under those subheads. The individual Ministers will be answerable to this House in relation to what criteria they will be adopting in their own departmental areas of responsibility for allocation of those funds.
