Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 25 Jun 1992

Vol. 421 No. 6

Adjournment Debate. - National Lottery Funding.

Mr. Quinn

I regret that I have had to bring the Minister back into the House on a day like today and that I have had to table this question, which was done with a great degree of anger. We heard recently in Dublin Castle that if parliamentary questions had been tabled frankly and honestly in this House there would have been no necessity to establish the Beef Tribunal. Yesterday a civil servant took it upon himself to unilaterally play around with the truth either at the behest of his superiors or, perhaps, his political masters. I fear that something similar is happening in relation to national lottery funds.

As a former office holder I should say to the Minister that he is above the pettiness which manifests itself in the way in which some of his smart alec officials have tried to evade responses to straight-forward questions.

I tabled a question on national lottery funding which was more or less along the lines of this question but it was grouped with three other questions for answer last Tuesday, 22 June. The Minister stated in his reply, "I refer the Deputy to the replies to questions Nos. 87 of 26 February and No. 253 of 10 March". The reply to Question No. 253 of 10 March refers to the reply to a grand total of 39 additional parliamentary questions. These replies evade, mislead or deliberately confuse or confound democratically elected politicians and were designed by civil servants acting on behalf of the Minister to stop us getting at the truth.

I have no desire to have another tribunal at Dublin Castle to find out where the national lottery funds have gone but the one factural reply I got out of that network of camouflage and confusion was to Question No. 87 of 26 February in the name of Deputy Bradford. It was a terse reply and it reads: "there is no provision in my Department's vote for 1992 for new grant allocations under this scheme". Yet, according to the Estimate £4 million has been provided under subhead F.3. As recently as last week the Minister's Department wrote to every local authority stating there was no such scheme. When I asked this question last week I was referred to the replies to other questions. Either the Minister is trying to hide something or his officials are being far too clever by half. This goes against the culture and traditions of the Custom House and I am sure it goes against the natural and personal instincts of the Minister for the Environment.

I would like the Minister to answer three questions. First, is there a national scheme whereby block grants are allocated to each local authority to enable them allocate money on the basis of subsidiarity to which only lipservice has been paid in recent times? Second, how much money will be given to each local authority and, third, when will they be notified? If there is no such scheme in operation, in accordance with the reply to Question No. 87 on 26 February, why has £4 million been provided in the Estimates for 1992 under subhead F3?

Finally, and I will allow the Minister extra time as I am more interested in his reply than in venting my anger, according to the findings of the survey carried out by DKM on the national lottery 52 per cent of those who participate regularly said that their motivation for participating in it was that organisations would benefit. This is not taxpayer's money but rather money raised by the national lottery which was set up by a previous administration. There is not one local authority around the country which knows what is going on in relation to these grants and the Minister's officials have come close to telling lies in the House in relation to the way parliamentary questions can be answered. That is the way one could reasonably describe it and still be in order within the rules of the House.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would remind the Deputy that he was not accusing them of telling lies; otherwise he would have had to withdraw it.

Minister for the Environment (Mr. Smith)

I am very glad to have this early opportunity to address the outrageously offensive and unfounded accusations which Deputy Quinn made against me in the House this morning. I have never backed away from any issue nor shirked my responsibility in any way. I have not done so in this case, either, as I will illustrate presently, and this is why I take such grave personal exception to being accused of "deliberate, constructed and sustained evasion" and of "evasion if not deceit" in relation to the performance of one of my functions as Minister for the Environment.

The Government's position on this matter has been made crystal clear in this House on several occasions. If Deputy Quinn was not too busy shooting from the hip, he might have taken the trouble to consult the record of this House for 23 October 1991, 26 February 1992 and 10 March 1992 when parliamentary questions were answered on this topic — not to mention the reply I gave to his question as recently as Tuesday of this week. However, now that the issue has been raised again in this unfortunate manner, I will take the opportunity to once again set the record straight.

Deputy Quinn referred this morning to the disappearance of national lottery funds. There is no disappearance of lottery funds. A sum of £4 million has been provided to meet payments to local authorities during the current year on foot of allocations made under this scheme in earlier years, according as work is carried out on individual projects and local authorities submit the necessary requests for payment to my Department. There is no provision in my Department's Vote for 1992 for new grant allocations under the scheme.

The Government made a conscious decision in their mid-year correction of the public finances last year to continue with this scheme in 1992. That was a conscious and responsible decision on the national finances — the type of decision which, I hasten to add, the Government of which Deputy Quinn was a member shied away from in what I regard as a shameful dereliction of duty.

As Deputies are aware, the review of the Programme for Government 1989-93 states that "in future, all amenity grants under the national lottery will be allocated by local authorities" and that remains the position. However, given that there is no new scheme for 1992, I have no intention of wasting time in deciding how a non-existent scheme might work; it should be clear to all Deputies that one cannot devolve something one has not got in the first place. The detailed arrangements to give effect to devolution will be decided by the Government at the appropriate time, and that will be whenever funds for a new scheme are made available.

Finally, in relation to earlier schemes, I must make it clear that all the money provided has been allocated — the full list of the projects under the 1991 and earlier schemes which were allocated funds are in the Oireachtas Library. In effect, the earlier schemes are finished and it only now remains for the grants that were allocated to be paid.