Vol. 179 No. 5
asked the Minister for Justice if he will state (1) the names of those organisations which are permitted to operate pools in the State; (2) the income and expenditure for the last financial year of each of these organisations; and (3) the percentage of income (a) retained for administration purposes, (b) retained for payments to managers or directors and (c) spent on the stated objectives of the organisations.
41.
asked the Minister for Justice whether he is prepared to make available in the Library completed balance sheets of those concerns which are operating pools under licence.
With the permission of the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions 40 and 41 together.
The granting of a licence to run periodical lotteries is a matter for the district court. The applications are heard in open court. It would be contrary to established practice for me to supply the names of parties to court proceedings of any kind and I am not prepared to depart from that practice.
Under the Gaming and Lotteries Act, there is no authority to require the organisations concerned to supply information about their financial position generally as distinct from information relating to the lotteries which they run. There is authority to provide, by police regulations, for the keeping of accounts in relation to those lotteries and the furnishing of returns and information relating thereto. The purpose of this provision is to enable the Garda Síochána to secure information to assist them in the detection of fraud and in the enforcement of the Act and it would, I think, be wrong, as it would almost certainly be contrary to the wishes and perhaps the interests of the organisations concerned, that information obtained in this way for a particular purpose should be made public for any other purpose.
I am quite prepared to believe it may not be in the interests of the organisations to make this information public, but I think in view of the very considerable size and proportion of the organisations, it would be in the public interest to make this information available. I should like to point out to the Minister that there is a precedent in the way the Hospitals Sweepstakes funds are administered in that such information is made available to the public in the form of an annual report. If there is no reason for concealment of this information, why are they not prepared to make it available?
Is the Deputy jealous of Gael Linn?
The Deputy is very sensitive about Gael Linn. He must know more about it than I do.
I do.
The police have power, by regulation, to examine these accounts and, if they see anything wrong, they can take action but it is not in the public interest to make the matters that the Deputy wants to have clarified made public.
May I ask why is it not in the public interest in the case of these things and it is in the public interest in the case of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstake? Why is there that differentation? Why the secrecy about one and why in the other case should the accounts be published— and rightly so—and put in the Library here and given to each individual Deputy separately?
Is it not clear that there is something to conceal or to hide?
There is nothing to hide. We are on identically the same line as, say, the Land Commission, which refuses in certain instance, the Revenue Commissioners in the same way, the Department of Social Welfare, the Post Office and other Departments of State.
Is the Land Commission running a pool?
Order.
What I am doing is what has been done by every Government since the State was founded. That is the practice and there is no proposal to alter it.
There is no reason why the Minister should not depart from that practice if he thinks it is a good idea.
Just to satisfy the Deputy's destructiveness?
The operation of pools had greatly extended in recent years. There is need to do this.
I can assure the Deputy that if the necessity ever arises I shall be quite prepared to take action but I must be assured that it is necessary to take action.
