Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My understanding is that it was raised at an Oireachtas committee by Rehab itself. The issue is that when one is talking about the disbursement of public moneys, there obviously must be accountability for that. Under the charitable lotteries scheme established in 1997, the promoters of certain private charitable lotteries that have products similar to those sold by the national lottery have received annual payments from the State to supplement their income. The total annual funding available peaked in 2009 and 2010 at approximately €8.6 million. As the allocation of funding is based on gross ticket sales, the Rehab Group typically receives approximately two thirds of the funding available each year. The scheme now is being wound down and a reduced total of €4 million was disbursed in 2013, while the allocation for 2014 is €2 million. I understand the decision by the Minister for Justice and Equality to wind down the scheme was communicated to the relevant charities in October 2012. The scheme is being wound down over a three-year period to afford affected organisations the opportunity to make any necessary changes to their fund-raising activities to ensure they are more directly profitable. It is not unreasonable that the State would examine how it spends public money in supporting charities. Between 2011 and 2013, Rehab received €10.4 million in public money for its lotteries. If it is the case that the State is spending several million euro per annum to support fund-raising in the tens of thousands, then it might be better to consider whether those millions could be used elsewhere, for example, in front-line services.

See this speech in context