Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this Bill. As someone who is involved in at least ten voluntary organisations, I am aware of the value of the funds available from various sources for voluntary and community initiatives throughout the country, particularly in north Kerry.

Deputy Mulcahy queried Opposition speakers' questioning of the integrity of Ministers' expenditure of public money. He should note that people mostly refer to the national lottery in this regard. There are many controls over everyday Government spending but the national lottery was certainly abused in many instances over the years. I recall a famous case in which a Minister not only announced a grant to a successful club but insisted that he be played into the town in question by a band while waving the cheque. This was the wrong way to do business. It created the wrong impression of how politicians handle public money and created the perception that they abuse the disbursement system for their own electoral gain. Unfortunately, this has happened to some extent regarding the disbursement of national lottery funds.

The present system is working quite well, by and large. There is a system whereby applicants can find out why their applications failed. For instance, they might not have provided the matching funding or targeted the marginalised or socially disadvantaged, or they might not have had proper plans in place or received planning permission. The present system is more transparent than the previous one although the Minister has some discretion and the Minister's county always seems to do better than other counties. As a fellow county man of the present Minister, I am not complaining that County Kerry is doing quite well at present.

When the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, was setting up the structure pertaining to the dormant accounts fund, he emphasised that he was transferring responsibility from the hands of politicians to an independent board. His reasoning was that, irrespective of whether a politician's decision on funding is correct, questions are always asked when he or she has a say in how a grant is to be allocated and spent.

I do not want to dwell too much on this subject because the Bill is a now a fait accompli, but it must be noted that the impression of community groups and the Opposition is that the Government will use the dormant accounts fund in a similar way to the way in which the national lottery fund may have been used as a type of slush fund. Members on the Government benches would also hold this view if they were on this side of the House. I appeal to the Minister, for whom I have great admiration, to ensure he will administer the fund very fairly and that the Opposition will not be in a position to accuse him of the contrary and of being politically motivated in the disbursement of funds. To ensure transparency and obtain support from all sides of the House, perhaps the Minister will consider consulting Members on all sides of the House. Perhaps he could consult the Oireachtas committees for guidance, in respect of successful applicants, for example.

Deputy Mulcahy suggested that there might be a role for local authorities. He contradicted what he said at the outset regarding ministerial responsibility for money. However, he emphasised that there is too much centralised decision-making and that the local authorities would comprise the best instrument of State to administer the fund. I agree with him in this regard. The more local the decision-making process, the more effective the targeting of the money at the marginalised and socially deprived will be. Local authorities are generally not given enough responsibility for disbursing funds locally. The cake can be divided centrally but it may be more effective if local authorities are given a greater say in its division. Perhaps they could be consulted or asked for advice on particular projects in their areas if this did not lead to a bureaucratic quagmire in which the Minister would have to await replies regarding such projects and encounter other delays. They could have a very effective role in deciding how to disburse the money.

The fund, which will soon amount to €230 million, arises from unclaimed life assurance policies and dormant bank accounts. I am involved in an organisation, a local committee that had a bank account in the 1980s. A member of the organisation recently went to the relevant bank and asked about the account. The bank manager advised this member that the Government took the money for the dormant accounts fund. The secretary of the committee may have left the region or died. The community in which the organisation is located was not very big at the time and it should have been possible to consult locals to track down the secretary.

I do not know how many similar cases exist. How many holders of dormant accounts from which moneys were appropriated could have been traced? In some instances, families may have been involved. Was there a thorough check done in tracking the owners of dormant bank accounts across the country? Who was responsible for tracking? Was it the local bank manager or someone else? What efforts were made to ensure that there were no persons who could lay claim to the money?

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