Vol. 438 No. 1
18 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Finance if he will give details of the structures for supervising the disbursement of national lottery funds; if he has satisfied himself that these are adequate, especially in view of allegations that some groups had received lottery money without having made formal application; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
It would be useful at the outset to clarify the respective roles of the Minister for Finance and of the other Ministers in regard to the disbursement of national lottery funds. Under section 5 of the 1986 Act, the Government decides the amount and purposes for which national lottery allocations shall be made. Such allocations are mainly decided by the Government in the context of settling the Estimates for the supply services.
Since lottery-funded spending is appropriated by the Dáil directly to the Votes of the spending Departments, it is reasonable that the Minister responsible for the particular Department should be answerable to the Dáil for any queries arising from such expenditure. When the relevant appropriation account is being examined by the Committte of Public Accounts, the accounting officer for that spending Department is accountable in regard to the regularity and correctness of any such expenditure.
All expenditure must, of course, have the sanction of my Department. In the case of lottery-funded schemes — and, indeed, for most of the day-to-day Exchequer expenditure — Departments operate under delegated Finance sanctions which allow the line Department to spend within clearly defined parameters without further recourse to the Department of Finance.
Accordingly, when a delegated sanction has been issued by my Department to cover lottery-funded expenditure, it is the responsibility of the Department concerned to ensure that any expenditure falling within the category is properly covered by the sanction. The accounting officer for each Vote is responsible for the correctness for all payments under his control. I am satisfied as to the adequacy of these arrangements.
As Deputies will be aware, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) with the assistance of the Comptroller and Auditor General recently investigated allegations that some groups had received lottery grants from the Department of Health without having made formal applications. This investigation indicated that while the correct procedures had not been followed in the particular cases, there was no impropriety involved. Revised arrangements have been made with a view to preventing a recurrence. When the Public Accounts Committee reports on the matter, I will review the procedures in relation to lottery-funded expenditures in the light of any recommendations made by it.
Is it not the case that the reported allegations investigated by the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General represent an abuse of national lottery funds? It is a matter of great public concern that national lottery funds are being used by some Government Ministers as a kind of State-sponsored election fund. Will the Minister agree that the time has come to introduce a degree of transparency and clearly understood regulations, governing the administration of national lottery funds, so that the public can clearly see where their money is going, how it is spent and who benefits from it, financially, electorally and politically?
Details of how the money is spent appears in the Book of Estimates every year and I have outlined how the procedure operates. Ministers are answerable for money spent by their Departments and there is no difficulty whatsoever with that. The Committee of Public Accounts is examining the matter with a view to tightening up the procedures as it was found in the investigations that they were not followed. It is the function of my Department to prescribe general rules by way of broad guidelines or specific instructions as to how the allocations, decided by the Government, are to be made. It is then the job of the individual spending Departments to develop adequate procedures of accounting for grant purposes and to ensure that there is no misuse of money. If the Committee of Public Accounts reports further on this matter, I will review the position. My Department has received outline views from Deputy Jim Mitchell, chairman of that committee, who is working with the accounting officer of my Department to see how the procedures can be tightened up. It is a matter of tightening up procedures rather than transparency in the system, which already exists.
Is the Minister aware that there is a deep public concern that lottery funds are being used as a fund for political patronage and a political slush fund? Will the Minister clarify whether the £5 million allocated last week to Croke Park and the money allocated to the North Wall project and Sheriff Street came from lottery funding and, if so——
We are going outside the bounds of this question. The matter raised by the Deputy warrants a separate question. We must keep within the bounds of the question which refers to the structures for supervising disbursement of the funds.
You can appreciate I am anxious to ensure that we keep within the structures and procedures. Is the Minister aware that the total money allocated last year to voluntary organisations dealing with the disabled was almost £8.3 million? However, it is anticipated that their loss through the success of the national lottery is £20 million a year. Will the Minister ensure that that position is rectified so that the future of organisations such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which has gone out of business, will not be jeopardised for political patronage?
Again, we seem to be going outside the bounds of the question.
I think Deputy Yates will appreciate that all these moneys are voted on by this House in an open and transparent way.
That does not answer the question.
We have been endeavouring, in the health and social welfare areas, to ensure that, wherever possible, the money goes to the head office of voluntary and local bodies. If it goes to the central administration, conflicts as to what section receives the money are avoided. Therefore, the best way to proceed is to ensure that wherever possible the money is given to central administration of these bodies.
Will the Minister agree that the original intention of the national lottery was to assist sport and recreation, arts and culture and to replace the moneys lost by voluntary organistions as a result of the national lottery? In reply to the question, he ignored the fact that his Department is the sponsoring Department in terms of policy and of the legislation concerned. Would he agree that this money is being used as if it were revenue from taxation as opposed to voluntary contributions made by the public? Would he further agree that the purpose for which the national lottery was originally set up — that is, to help small clubs and sporting organisations, particularly those in underprivileged areas — has been totally ignored and that moneys are being expended on projects for which lottery funding was never intended? Will the Minister kindly arrange, through his Department, to change the present policy so that small clubs and organisations are assisted in the future?
A number of changes have been made to the policy decided by the Government in 1988. For example, in 1990 the Government decided to direct the money more towards the areas of health and education. I think the present breakdown of the funding — I do not have the figures with me — is approximately one-third for education, one-third for health and one-third for sport and the arts. This decision was not made solely by the Government, the people who play the national lottery games were consulted and they wished to see the money being directed towards the health area. This decision was made some years ago and I do not believe it would be possible to direct all the money towards the areas of sport and the arts.
I agree with the Deputy that national lottery funding should not be used to replace Exchequer money. That is why it was separated from the system in 1990. Every departmental subhead clearly shows what the money has been used for, and people can easily check this and make comparisons with earlier years. As the Deputy knows well, that is precisely what the various charitable, sporting and cultural organisations do. These organisations have managed to increase their take over the past few years as a result of this. On the other side of the coin, it should be remembered that for every pound taken in by the national lottery, £10 is sought in funding. The demands are excessive in terms of the funding available.
Would the Minister agree that since the first disbursement of national lottery funding in 1987 there has been a continuous barrage of allegations of improper procedures and, indeed, at times chicanery? The changes made in 1990, which were supposed to lead to greater involvement by local authorities, were completely unworkable and meant nothing. In view of the recent allegations — the most serious of which has been made by the Comptroller and Auditor General and is under investigation by the Committee of Public Accounts — does the Minister agree that it is high time to put in place proper procedures which will ensure transparency and, above all, that the disbursement of national lottery funds is not left solely at the discretion of the Minister who has control over it? Is it not the case that at the end of the day the Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Health and, perhaps, the Minister for Finance decide which projects will receive funding from the national lottery? That is the level of transparency which surrounds this matter.
As I outlined in my reply, that is not what happens. From 1987, when the national lottery was launched, until 1989 the funds were issued from a subhead in the Department of Finance Vote — the subhead dealing with the distribution of national lottery grant-in-aid to suspense accounts operated by the relevant spending Departments. From 1990 onwards the lottery funds were issued through the appropriate subheads in the Votes of the relevant spending Departments.
With regard to the second part of the question, the Committee of Public Accounts is working on recommendations on how to improve the system, the means of assessment and the means of financial control, and I will take its views on board and make the necessary changes.
I presume the Minister is not implying that because of the total success of the national lottery other charitable organisations which run lotteries have done well since 1987. The fact is that these organisations have been almost wiped off the board. It is the responsibility of the Minister and his colleagues in Government to ensure that such charities, which have a tradition of providing a great service to the handicapped across a wide spectrum, are not wiped out by the national lottery. They do not seem to be able to get the level of funding they had hoped to get from the national lottery. Given the many aspects of the matter raised today, it is little wonder that these organisations cannot get this funding, which appears to be directed towards projects for which it was never intended. I should like the Minister to comment on this point. He knows that the Rehabilitation Institute and many other organisations——
The Deputy seems to be moving away from the substance of the question.
It relates to the theme of the question. The Minister knows only too well that these organisations are not receiving adequate funding from the national lottery. It is time to call a halt to this practice and to level the playing pitch.
The Deputy's supplementaries have nothing to do with the question——
I totally agree.
——but I will be very glad to answer them. Charitable organisations receive substantial funding from the lottery.
Some of them get nothing.
There was a huge shortfall.
Independent research shows that only 4 per cent of lottery players indicated that the money spent on lottery games should be allocated to charities. I am not sure if there is much room for argument in regard to this issue. I do not think there is any great money there——
We all know that everyone wants to become a millionaire.
We are lucky to live in a country where the funding given to charitable organisations continues to rise every year — it has risen substantially since 1987. I am not sure if the Deputy's argument holds up.
That is a distortion of what is actually happening.
I agree that guidelines covering this area should be drawn up and implemented. The allocation of national lottery funding got off to a very bad start. I remember two Ministers in my constituency competing with each other in regard to the allocation of funds.
They must have done fairly well.
Is the Minister aware that local authorities were given a certain autonomy in 1992 in relation to the allocation of funding for amenity-recreational facilities within their areas but that no amenity-recreational facility grants have been allocated to local authorities since 1981? In other words, local authorities were given the power but were given no money.
That is a matter for the Minister for the Environment. I have no responsibility for that scheme.
According to the Act, the Minister for Finance has the power.
The Minister pulled a few strokes in his constituency. He threw £5.5 million around like confetti last week.
On a point of information for Deputies who know their way to Leinster House but do not know their way around Dublin, Croke Park is not in my constituency.
It is in the Minister's extended area.
That is outside the terms of reference of the question, so to speak.
I call Deputy Cox, after which I will call Deputy Gilmore for a final question.
Please desist, Deputies.
I listened carefully to the Minister's reply to the question. He said that the Department of Finance gives a delegated sanction to the other relevant Departments and that he was awaiting the review of certain matters in regard to procedure by the Committee of Public Accounts. I am glad to hear that the Minister has an open mind on any procedures which might be recommended and implemented. Will he outline specifically what he did, through his Department, in respect of his responsibility for these matters, without prejudice to what may be recommended by the Committee of Public Accounts, which does not absolve him from inquiring into the matter? What has the accounting officer of the relevant Department referred to by the Comptroller and Auditor General offered by way of explanation for the allocation of money to people who had not applied for funding?
That is a relevant question. The procedures in the Department of Health were immediately changed to ensure that a similar situation would not arise again. At a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts in December he outlined the procedures which had been put in place. I asked the accounting officers of all Departments to immediately check the safeguards and accountancy controls to ensure that a similar situation did not arise anywhere else.
Aare those who broke the rules included also?
With regard to the question of transparency, would the Minister agree that if someone wants to find out where lottery money is being allocated, ultimately they are required to go through the annual reports of the National Lottery Company, departmental Estimates, replies to Dáil questions, reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General and reports of the Committee of Public Accounts and that that is hardly transparent; nothing could be more opaque? Has the Minister the information on which he could publish a report which would correlate all of that information and indicate in a comprehensive way where national lottery money has been allocated since the national lottery was founded, how much of it has gone into the Exchequer, how much of it has been allocated to community groups and charities and who have been the beneficiaries of this money so that in one report the public can have all the information regarding national lottery disbursals?
I will certainly raise that issue with the National Lottery Company; it is not an unreasonable request. I would make the point that one is not required to go through all of the departmental Estimates or reports of departmental agencies to obtain such information. The national lottery funding for each year is printed in one section at the back of the Book of Estimates, a measure which was implemented by me two or three years ago in order to combine all the information. I realise it does not give the details of, for example, what is under subhead 1.A but it indicates what money is allocated through the Exchequer to the various Departments and agencies.
May I ask a brief supplementary question?
The question has been dealt with adequately.
