Charles Flanagan
Ceist:2 Mr. Flanagan asked the Minister for Health the steps, if any, he proposes to take within his Department to ensure transparency and accountability in disbursement of national lottery funds.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - National Lottery Funds.
Godfrey Timmins
Ceist:57 Mr. Timmins asked the Minister for Health if he proposes to regulate the flow of national lottery funds through his Department by way of regulating amounts to voluntary health care services.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 2 and 57 together.
May I at the outset refute any suggestion that the Department has not, since the initiation of lottery grants, acted in accordance with the guidelinss issued by the Department of Finance and in accordance with administrative procedures based on accepted good practice? The procedures which have been adopted have had regard for the need to ensure transparency and accountability in disbursing national lottery funds.
In 1992, the latest year for which complete figures are available, of the £41.292 million available in lottery funding, almost 98 per cent went to support ongoing services administered by health boards or by bodies which have a close ongoing relationship with my Deparment. A very small proportion was available, therefore, to support discretionary type grants.
The procedures which have been adopted in relation to this small proportion of funds, issued at the Minister for Health's discretion, are briefly:
(a) each request is assessed by the relevant division in the Department having regard to the nature of the service being provided by the organisation seeking the grant. The request may be made by the organisation or on its behalf. The division will, either through its direct knowledge of the work of the organisation or on the basis of information provided by the relevant health board, take a view on whether the grant should be favourably considered and, if so, the order of priority which should be afforded to it among the competing requests.
(b) In a small proportion of cases the Department may itself take an initiative, based on knowledge and ongoing relationship with an organisation, and recommend to the Minister the making of a grant to supplement the resources to it from other sources.
(c) The various requests and recommendations are then the subject of discussion with the Minister normally in the first half of the year and, again, in November-December each year. The Minister's decisions are then implemented by the Department. Other requests which arise from time to time and which have to be dealt with quickly are addressed in a similar manner.
(d) Each organisation receiving a grant is informed in writing that the lottery grant may only be used on the project or for the purpose in respect of which it was approved and is requested to submit a certificate of expenditure to the Department on completion of the project or as soon as possible after the end of the financial year in which the grant was issued, whichever is the earlier.
When I was considering the first tranche of requests for lottery funding earlier this year, soon after my appointment, I requested my officials to conduct a full review of administrative procedures relating to the disbursement of these funds. Resulting from this review the following amendments have been adopted: a standard application form, as I informed the Deputy at the Special Committee, will be introduced from January 1994 onwards which will be the basis on which payments will be authorised, save for those recommended by the Department on its own initiative; confirmation of expenditure for the approved project or service will be pursued; health boards to be informed on a routine basis of all direct payments made to organisations within their functional areas: the aim of this is to improve co-ordination. All unsuccessful applicants in each year will be notified and informed that they may submit a new application in the future. This processs has already begun — for example, all of those who have received discretionary funding in 1992 have again been written to for certification of expenditure.
However laudable the Minister's approach may be, he is in effect, closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. I believe there are serious irregularities in the matter of disbursement of lottery funds in his Department. Is the Minister prepared to open the books in his Department and come clean on applications for lottery funds over the past number of years? The Minister mentioned that discretionary payments by his Department were small. I understand that in 1992 payments under the discretionary grant scheme amounted to £7.7 million. Will he confirm that the figure is accurate?
There is great public unease about the disbursement of lottery funds by the Department of Health. The Minister has now admitted to the House that the standard application form will be introduced as and from 1 January, 1994. This is the reaction to something that is bordering on a scandal. I ask the Minister to come clean and inform the House on the steps he proposes to take at Cabinet level to ensure that the distribution of lottery funds is above board. Since 1987 we have handled over £350 million of lottery funds.
Let me respond very directly not only to the supplementary questions but to the mutterings on the benches opposite. I have a very clear view on this matter. I intend that transparency will be the hallmark of my time in the Department of Health. That is the case and will remain the case. I refute any suggestions stated or muttered to the contrary.
The Deputy opposite talks about serious irregularities but no such irregularities occurred. As I stated in my initial response, the guidelines and the law were complied with in their entirety. The secretary of my Department has responded today before the Committee of Public Accounts on these matters.
Lest there be any doubt, I instructed my Department—although they did not need instruction—to make available to the Committee of Public Accounts all documents that are required for as long and for as far back as it requires them. The documents will be made available to everybody. I understand the Deputy's usual overstatement on these matters and why some Deputies, absent or present, would like to make more of it than there is.
There is grave public disquiet and the Minister knows it.
Lest there be any doubt about it, I am in office 11 months and there will be complete transparency about every action I take in office. I am accountable to this House and my Department is accountable before the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee of Public Accounts. I welcome that.
The Deputy is, of course, wrong again in his figures. For the information of the House, the total amount of funds nominally at the Minister's discretion in 1992 was £1.69 million. Of this amount £834,000 had to be allocated to meet ongoing commitments, arising from decisions made earlier, to fund organisations of which the Deputies opposite will be very familiar and certainly support. This left a balance of about £857,000 on which the Minister was free to make the decision. Of that amount a great deal went on organisations with which the Deputy would be familiar — for example, Western Care got £70,000 to fund ongoing development in the mentally handicapped services. The information is available in black and white for everybody to see. There is absolute transparency.
I have made some amendments because I felt that the processing of applications for national lottery funding was very awkward and it was very hard for staff to treat handwritten letters as applications — somebody submitted very comprehensive documents and one voluminous application included a video. There needed to be a standardisation and months ago I instructed staff that the standard form would come into operation from next year. Obviously, I did not want to ask every organisation which had submitted an application to resubmit another. For comparative purposes and ease of administration, as well as clear accountability, a standard form is desirable and will be implemented from 1 January, 1994.
The Chair is concerned about the time factor involved in our proceedings. Brevity should be the keynote at this time.
I am sure the Chair agrees that this is a matter of considerable public importance. The only way the tide of cynicism will be dispelled is when the Minister and his Cabinet colleagues take on board a suggestion made by the Tánaiste in 1988 that an all party forum be set up to deal with the lottery. Until there is a root and branch review of the disbursement of lottery funding we will have the type of problems that were referred to not only by me and other Deputies on this side of the House but by no less a person than the Comptroller and Auditor General. A number of important questions remain to be answered. The Comptroller and Auditor General said that lottery applications in the Department of Health were haphazard.
The comments of the Comptroller and Auditor General did not include words like "scandal" and "irregularities".
Haphazard.
"Haphazard" is a long way from implying irregularities which impugns the character of some very fine men.
Haphazard with taxpayers money.
Deputy Carey may not intervene at this stage.
The Deputy, I am sure, will want to reflect on any such assertions to be made in this House. As far as I am concerned there will be total transparency. I receive representations from all sides of the House on lottery funding and I regard them as confidential and I do not intend suggesting——
Is the Minister suggesting we should not make representations?
Deputy Carey, I have advised you that you may not intervene at this stage. If you persist you know the consequences.
It is a normal process——
It might be arrogant.
That is the third time the Deputy has blatantly ignored the Chair.
I am concerned about transparency, and there will be transparency for as long as I am in charge of the Department.
From now on. That is what the Minister is saying.
Not from now on. I am responsible for the Department and all files are available to the Committee of Public Accounts for any investigation they may wish to have. That is as far as we can possibly go. I understand the wish of some Deputies to make more of it than there is, but everybody who has received a grant from the Department of Health was worthy of it. The money available for voluntary organisations is very small and the social services and the health services only survive due to the tremendous work of voluntary organisations. Sometimes we can make only token payments to these organisations and the payments are of significance only in terms of the suggestion of support as opposed to monetary value.
Question No. 3 in the name of Deputy Cullen. Ní fheicim an Teachta. Mar nílsé i gceannas caithfidh mé dular aghaidh le ceist eile.