Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Comptroller and Auditor General will understand this. It goes to the heart of the going-concern accounting basis. We all hope the money from the sale of the lottery licence will be there when construction starts in 2016 and 2017. However, it is clear that there is no ring-fenced fund, although we have been told hundreds of times that there would be such a fund. I am not asking the Comptroller and Auditor General to comment on the Minister's comments, but he said it time and again. The Dáil record is littered with his references to the ring-fenced fund consisting of a portion of the proceeds of the National Lottery sale to finance the national children's hospital. If that fund existed, I would be very happy with the use of the going-concern accounting basis, knowing there was a ring-fenced fund. However, essentially, there is no such thing as a ring-fenced fund in the Central Fund. That is what I am being told. It is all in the one fund. That is what we always understood it to be.