Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 17 Nov 1998

Vol. 496 No. 6

Written Answers - National Lottery.

Minister for Finance (Mr. McCreevy)

This commitment is being met by implementing the Report of the Review Group on the National Lottery published last year.

The terms of reference of the group required it primarily to look closely at the impact of spending finance from the surplus of the national lottery with particular attention to the allocation of funds administered by Departments under discretionary schemes involving financial support for voluntary agencies such as sporting and community bodies.

The group was also asked to review the arrangements and procedures for processing applications for national lottery funding and to make recommendations for maximum transparency in the allocation of lottery resources.

Submissions were invited from individuals and interested parties by way of public advertisement. Approximately 130 submissions were made to the group from a wide range of interests throughout the community. All submissions were considered by the group.

The main recommendation of the group is that, in future, the allocation of lottery resources should be directed entirely to the support of voluntary and community activity. A major step towards implementing this has been made in the 1999 Abridged Book of Estimates. This is intended to bring about a much closer association, than has been the case heretofore, of lottery support with a wide range of services and activities at the heart of the community. In this way, the benefits of spending on the lottery — about 33p of every pound spent on a lottery ticket goes to the good causes — could be more clearly demonstrated than under the present arrangements. The recommendation entails a realignment of lottery funded expenditure involving, on the one hand, the transfer to lottery funding of some support for voluntary and community bodies currently provided by the Exchequer and, on the other, the transfer to the Exchequer of support for statutory bodies now funded from the lottery.

The greater emphasis on voluntary and community groups is one that I welcome. I know that many of those involved in voluntary and community projects that have been aided by the lottery in the past have found that the assistance provided was the catalyst to enable some very important progress to be made in the provision of facilities or otherwise.

I will summarise for Deputies the other main principal recommendations of the review group. The allocation of national lottery funds should continue to be made by the Government rather than by an independent body. The subsequent disbursement of lottery funds should be made in partnership with the voluntary and community sector. The needs of the most disadvantaged groups within the voluntary and community sectors should be prioritised in the allocation of lottery funds within individual programmes and due regard should be had to gender and regional balance. Application procedures for support from programmes funded by the beneficiary fund should be standardised and means of access to them made more publicly visible. The Government should from time to time publish more details of how the funding is distributed over various sectors. Decision making on applications should reflect a commitment to the principle of partnership with the client base. The National Lottery Act, 1986, should be amended to provide for the procedures which must be followed when national lottery funds are being allocated. A process should be put in place to enable the Government to identify, from time to time, suitable major projects with an enduring impact which could be provided for from lottery resources. To oversee the implementation of the recommendations made in the report and to maintain a continuous oversight of the disbursement of the beneficiary fund, a national lottery beneficiary fund monitoring committee should be established.

As indicated earlier, one of the main recommendations, the transfer of funding between the Exchequer and the voluntary/community sectors, has largely been implemented and my Department, in consultation with the other Departments concerned, is implementing the other recommendations.