Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have debated this issue at length. The Deputy says that he trusts my bona fides and accepts my word, yet he wants to write it into law. I have explained that the genesis of this was that we wanted a capital fund. I do not know how much we will get but I hope we will get more than enough to allocate to the national children's hospital. The bulk of the money will be going for that purpose. That is written in the programme for Government and is repeatedly on the record of this House, including in the debates on all stages of this Bill. It is also in the capital programme, published by the Government and endorsed by both the Government and the House. It is very clear that this is what we want to do.

To try to address the issues brought forward in good faith by Deputy Fleming, I gave an undertaking on Committee Stage to revert to the House once the sum of money we raised was known and to explain how it will be used, shortly after the final arrangements are made. I think that is a reasonable way of dealing with this issue. I hope my bona fides on this are accepted. It is not appropriate, according to the advice I received from Parliamentary Counsel and others, to put that into legislation because this legislation deals with the national lottery licence but 20 years from now, the purpose of the initial capital moneys will not be relevant. Therefore, it should not be included in the legislation. The Deputy should accept what I have said, which is on the public record, including on the record of the Dáil and the Seanad, as well as is in the programme for Government and the capital plan. That is what the money is for and I can do no more if the Deputy does not accept that.

Subsequent to the extensive discussions we had on Committee Stage, I met Mr. John Corrigan of the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, and discussed the question of how to deal with this matter in the context of the likelihood that we will have the money in advance of the call on the money. Initially, we thought that the actual construction of the national children's hospital and the availability of the money from the sale of this licence would be happening in parallel. Unfortunately, however, due to the planning difficulties with the hospital, the construction is not happening with the speed we would like. It will happen, I hope, with great speed but it is not happening this year. However, it looks like we will have the up-front payment this year. I have discussed with the NTMA how we would construct a particular account and I will give full information when we know the amount of money involved and we have all of the details on that. In the interim, I reaffirm that it is my intention to allocate a significant portion of the up-front payment that we get from the sale of the national lottery licence, assuming it is sufficient, to that purpose. I hope the Deputy will be satisfied and accept my word on that.

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