Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will make a few points. First, the entire reasoning for this initiative is to build a national children's hospital. That is the genesis of it. When we were doing the public capital programme shortly after we came into office I published the public multiannual programme in November 2011. In order to hold €390 million - if I recall correctly - annual expenditure on capital for health I needed to squeeze other areas, and transport is one of the areas that was squeezed, as the Deputy will be aware. I came in for some criticism from the Deputy's party in reducing capital spend generally but we had to squeeze, and that was the decision we made. I have been looking for alternative ways of augmenting the public capital programme since, including moneys through the European Investment Bank and the sale of State assets generally.

I was determined, as was Government, to fund the national children's hospital. It required a very significant chunk of money and in the previous Government's structuring of it, another big chunk of the money was to come from philanthropy. To be blunt, I was never convinced that a volume of money of the size envisaged would come from philanthropy to fund it.

I wanted to be certain that we had the money and that it was in place. I wanted to be able to say to the people with an honest heart that this would be built. In fairness to my Department, we examined all possible avenues and the availability of the licence money and how to structure it in a given way if an upfront payment presented itself. I presented that to Government and there has been a formal Government decision – it does not depend on my being in Government – to expend a significant sum of the proceeds of the upfront payment on the national children's hospital and that is what we intend to do.

It is not appropriate to tie that into this legislation. This is the advice I have received from the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, but I am giving my commitment that this is what the Government intends and this is what I intend. How is it do be done? Initially it was not as challenging an issue because we could allocate it immediately to the Department of Health capital Vote because we would have used it immediately. However, since that is not going to happen we must put it somewhere on hold. It could be placed in an escrow account or a ring-fenced account within the NTMA family. To put it bluntly, I do not want it mixed with other money, I want to see it clear and true to be honest and faithful to the people in the commitments I have made. That is what we will devise.

I have no wish to report within one month, because within one month of enactment I will not know how much money I have. Only when we conclude the sale will we know the volume of money and whether I have enough to build the hospital, whether I have a significant surplus or what the story will be. However, I would be happy to give a commitment to the committee and the Chairman, once the national lottery licence is sold, placed and taken up, to come back and explain exactly what to do with the money, and to take advices on that and bring in the NTMA and whoever else the committee wishes to discuss it.