Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 22 June 2023
Public Accounts Committee
Appropriation Accounts 2021
Vote 33 - Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 4: Re-allocation of Voted Funding
9:30 am
James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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It said horse racing. I felt it was quite critical of horse racing in its comments. That is obviously under the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, however. It is not under Ms Licken's auspices, which I acknowledge. As I said, I cannot see where the major problem is. The amount of money that was allocated was enormous and, hopefully, the next round will be as large, if not larger, given the economic situation. I just get a sense from ongoing commentary and the direction of travel on this that there does seem to be a push towards it.
Let me make the point about large organisations, which I will not name. One might perhaps say that large sporting organisations, or a governing body of sporting organisations, would prefer to have a block grant where they would get the power that lies with Ms Licken's Department whereby they can allocate the funding themselves centrally. I would argue that would be a disaster if that were allowed to occur.