Vol. 498 No. 4
254 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Finance the reason the Estimate subhead for Exchequer funded grants for community and voluntary services has been subsumed into the lottery funded subhead; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27387/98]
The report of the review group on the national lottery, which was commissioned by the previous Government and published last year, recommended that the surplus revenues of the national lottery, other than those in the reserve fund, should in future be devoted entirely to the support of community and voluntary activity in the area of youth services, sports, the arts, the Irish language, welfare, health and social services, community development, etc.
The report envisaged that this change would be carried out, initially, on a budget-neutral basis. This change meant transferring to Exchequer funding items, heretofore funded by the lottery, which did not fall under the heading of community and voluntary activity, with an equivalent amount of spending on community and voluntary activity, funded by the Exchequer, being transferred to lottery funding.
The changes were made in the 1999 Abridged Estimates Volume and are explained in the footnotes to appropriate Votes.
I emphasise that no change in financial provisions has resulted. The only change has been the source of funding in a particular Vote for a particular service — either from lottery funding to Exchequer funding or vice versa.
