Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I am delighted to have an opportunity to speak on the Dormant Accounts (Amendment) Bill. The dormant accounts board originated from the DIRT inquiry and has raised hundreds of millions of euro. It carried out very good work. When I was Minister we decided this was one quango too many. The dormant accounts board was set up because the usual allegations made about slush funds and so on were being made with regard to the possibility of the Government disbursing the fund. Several years ago, we amended the Act and transferred the giving out of the funds from the independent board to the Department. The board was in place as a general oversight body that drew up the dormant accounts plan. However, the actual disbursement was an issue for the Government. It is fine to have an independent board. My complaint at the time, which in hindsight was a wise complaint, was that it was giving out far too much in current funding. If one gives a two year project funding, after the two years is up the project will come with the hand out looking for a further two years and a further two years again. A problem would then arise because one creates extra liabilities on the State. We now know the danger of creating continuing liabilities on the State.

I always took the view that the vast majority of dormant accounts funding should go to capital projects. The reason we took that function away from the board was to ensure we had control over the fundamental issue of sustainability into the long term without Exchequer funding. The categories involved included educational disadvantage, social and economic disadvantage and disability. By their nature, few of these projects would become self-sustaining in a business manner. Therefore, if one ran a programme that was good, either it would be required to get more dormant accounts funding, although it was not meant to be repeat dormant accounts funding, or one would have to move on to Exchequer funding. We know now the consequences of ever increasing commitments of Exchequer funding.

In the first stage the Department moved to take over the disbursement. Several committees were formed. Pobal vetted the projects and brought them to the committees, several of which I chaired. We examined the proposals from Pobal at these committees. Often, if we were unsatisfied with a proposal to fund or to refuse funding we discussed it with the agencies involved and we asked them to revisit it. By doing so we avoided what some Deputies might have been concerned about, that is, decisions made on the back of an envelope without proper evaluation.

On the other hand, leaving it to the agency and not having a committee and a political input would have thrown up significant difficulties as well. I remember one case where a project came for a respite building. It was a flagship project and half the money for it was to come from the community involved through flag days and genuine non-State resources. They sought to build a respite centre for people with mental disabilities. Pobal recommended refusal on the grounds that there was no clear demand for the respite centre stated on the application form. The only reason it was not stated was that it was so obvious that the promoters, a well-known body involved in disability, figured they did not need to make the case too strongly. The HSE was at the committee and its view was that it should be funded. A reasonable suggestion was agreed to the effect that Pobal would reinvestigate whether the services would be used and whether there would be a demand for them. They have been used since then and there is always a demand when it comes to people with disabilities. We were providing a building that would be considerably more efficient and built to a higher standard than what was in place previously.

There were few complaints during my time as Minister in terms of the process of giving out the money. When the debate started about the quangos we decided that the oversight should be in this House, just as Deputy Stanton has suggested. I am not in favour of the idea we sometimes throw out among each other that the last people we trust are each other. That has done no one on any side of the House any service. It is easy to check every step that every Minister carries out in the disbursement of money through the freedom of information process. If one believes it is unfair, there are many committees for oversight.

Over the years all of us have gone to Ministers on the other side of the House to speak for a good project. When I was a Minister, if anyone came to me on that basis, I would have taken it into account. If something was recommended for refusal, I would sometimes check with the local Deputies whether they thought it was a right or wrong decision. We bring a knowledge which is incomparable because we are all on the ground. This is especially the case if we are willing to be somewhat interparty about these issues in our consultations to reinforce whether we are making the right decisions.

The board has been magnificent. It has done its job thoroughly with great efficiency and at very low cost. I would particularly like to thank Mr. Michael Morley, the chairman of the board, who has been one of the best chairpersons of any State board. He brought to the board a wealth of skill and knowledge about money from his professional life, but also brought a wealth of knowledge about the community sector because of his involvement in the community. It was difficult to get somebody skilled in both of those spheres. The rest of the board also put in significant time.

At a time people were complaining about there being 400 quangos and despite the fact nobody could complain about the work of the board, it was our view that the board was superfluous to need and that there was no need for a statutory board to do the work that remained, because the plan was simple and focused. Another factor is that the amount of money coming in now is much less than previously. I understand that last year some €38 million came in and that half of that is going out again. Therefore, the account has approximately €20 million a year to disburse.

This leads to the next issue with which we must deal, and I hope the Minister will arrange for this to be taken on board in an amendment. I was working on this issue when I was Minister. I recall the first time I went over to the Department of Finance. Money was going out, but money was coming in from a non-Exchequer source in accrual at the bottom of the Estimates. Therefore, there was no net expenditure. I asked whether we could increase the spend and was told we could not, because all of the dormant account money was considered a liability. This is farcical, considering that in ten years of getting in this money, the outgoing has never exceeded what comes into the account. It is farcical that all of the money coming into the account, some of it from as far back as 1800 and something - which was unclaimed in the banks - is considered to be a liability on the State.

This is ridiculous. We suggest the State could have a windfall profit or reduction of its debt of approximately €400 million tomorrow if it came to an agreement on this. It could say that anybody who put money into a bank and suddenly remembered the money was there, was entitled to repayment, which is in fact the case, and that these people would have the first call on the money that comes in this year. It could say that if by some freak circumstance the amount of money being reclaimed was greater than what was coming into the account, which has never been the case, these people could have the first call on the dormant account money coming in the following year.

Like Deputy Stanton, I do not understand how €30 million a year continues to come into the account. I have suspicions of how these bank accounts arise, but I can dream on because I do not know for certain, since nobody showed me the bank accounts in question. However, the money keeps rolling in. Therefore, it seems reasonable that the State could say its liability to the big fund is wiped away, despite the fact that people are entitled to repayment of their money. People who are due reclaims can get their money from the bank in the normal way before their accounts becomes dormant, because the bank is meant to contact people a number of times before declaring their accounts dormant. If after their accounts are declared dormant, people suddenly remember their money, they would have first call on the money coming in from dormant accounts before it is disbursed through the dormant accounts fund.

If the Minister feels this is too radical, he could provide for a reserve fund in the dormant accounts or could decide to reserve money for another five years and keep those moneys parked and frozen for possible repayment. I do not believe anybody would ever draw from that reserve fund, but if it were a concern, the Minister could make that arrangement to be doubly sure there would not be a risk of somebody not being repaid his or her money. The idea that all the people who ever had a dormant account would come in claiming all this money is beyond reason. We know the banks have written off coinage and notes over the years that got lost from people's pockets, fell down drains or whatever and that this came as a windfall profit to the State and the Exchequer. We know that can be done, although technically that money could be found and reclaimed. However, everybody knows that is not going to happen, although if people find some old legal tender, they can take it to the Central Bank and get money for it. Common sense in this regard could save the Government significant money. Now more than ever, it would be good to free up this dormant account money so that the Department of Finance need not argue that if it gives out €20 million from the dormant accounts fund this year, that is a €20 million liability for the State. If it wrote off all of the fund, apart from the incoming moneys and the money put aside as a reserve, it would still have considerable money to spend.

I suggest this money should be spent in two ways. First, it should be spent on flagship projects. Flagship projects are for educational, social and economic disadvantage and for disability, and all funding provided should be capital funding only, which was my intention when this fund was set up. Providing money for flagship project allows the Government to provide that if a community can, for example, collect €250,000 for a project, it can then apply to the dormant accounts fund for that same amount. What ever the community collected, it could collect the same again from the account. We insisted that none of the funding for these flagship projects could be State funding. In other words it could not be HSE funding or whatever or the Government would not match it. It should be genuine private funding.

We found that much of the funds raised by communities came to disability groups, who constantly collect money. They are fantastic at collecting money and love the idea of doubling their money for a project they have in mind. Funding for a particular project in Limerick came from a philanthropist well known to many people. Fantastic facilities have been built as a result of this method of fund-raising. People collecting funds could say to the people they were asking to put money in their boxes that for every euro they succeeded in collecting, they would get another euro to back it. That is a huge stimulus to encourage people to give. Despite the downturn in the economy, it is extraordinary how willing people are to give money. I heard recently about a fund-raising effort for a hospital after a young child died in Connemara. A day was spent fund-raising with a sponsored cycle and walk and a sum of approximately €30,000 was raised. That was raised in one day. There are people who will give and all of us know that. Despite hard times, these people are more than willing to give. However, it is a real incentive to people to give if they are told the money collected will be doubled. It would be worth the Minister's while to look at the list of projects that were done by this method.

The Minister should focus - I would do this if I were Minister - on using dormant accounts funding every year to provide discretionary funding to the RAPID areas for small projects. The RAPID areas are the most socially and economically deprived areas in this country and by definition fall into the category of what is eligible for dormant account funding. I found that when I provided €100,000 funding to Pobal for RAPID areas, Pobal went and decided to give that money out to small projects within these disadvantaged areas. It might have provided funding just for a set of uniforms for a band or equipment for a sports club, but the money made a great difference to the lives of people, particularly young people on whom funding was focused.

It gave people a sense of ownership of RAPID. There was a point in going to RAPID committee meetings because there was something to do, such as a firm decision to make. It was not just about co-ordinating Government agencies. By providing €5,000 here or €2,000 there, one could help all the small projects that find it hard to raise money in these areas. I have noticed that something makes it easier to collect money for causes - football clubs, etc. - in rural areas of the county. It is much harder to get financial support in deprived urban areas. The approach we were taking was not costing us a huge amount of money. It would be worthwhile for the Government to consider adopting this approach again.

This Bill will have to be passed in order to do all of what I have said. That is fine. The board does not change what I am talking about. The liability issue will have to be dealt with if it is to be possible to start giving out the money again. In my view, it is more of a mental block than a real block. After that has been dealt with, the Government should decide to use this funding in areas of social and economic disadvantage, rather than dispersing it in a scattergun manner throughout the country. As we did previously, we should focus the funds mainly on the RAPID programme. The rest of it should be allocated through another flagship scheme for capital projects. This will suit the disability groups, in particular. Half of the money will come from box-shaking or philanthropy and the other half will come from the dormant accounts.

I welcome this Bill. More than at any other time, we need to be creative now. We should work together in the interests of people. I hope the amendments we will propose will be accepted in that spirit. If the wording of an amendment is not right on Committee Stage - it never is when one is in opposition - perhaps the Government will come forward with an equivalent amendment to deal with these issues.

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