Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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498. To ask the Minister for Health if he will investigate the case of a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17593/17]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The person referred to by the Deputy applied for a grant of €46,000 from the 2016 Department of Health National Lottery fund on behalf of Camphill Community, Grangemockler, Carrick on Suir, Co Tipperary. Unfortunately it was not possible to provide funding for this application as the applications for lottery funding last year far exceeded the funds that were available to my Department.

393 applications for National Lottery funding were received in 2016 of which 136 were approved for a grant. A list of all applicants approved for a National Lottery grant was published on my Department's website last November and each successful applicant was notified of their approval for a grant in early December 2016.

The 257 unsuccessful applicants were informed of the outcome by email between December 2016 and January 2017. In the case of the application in question, a grant approval notification was inadvertently generated and issued to the applicant in January 2017. This notification did not specify any grant amount. As soon as the error was detected my Department contacted the applicant, explained that a grant had not in fact been approved, that the notification she received had been generated and issued in error, and apologised for the confusion and any inconvenience caused. The correct notification was subsequently issued to the applicant advising that all the 2016 lottery funding had been disbursed and that it was not possible to provide funding for the project.

I regret that I was not in a position to provide the requested funding on this occasion and that an incorrect notification was initially issued to the applicant; however, I am pleased to note that the HSE was in a position to provide grants of €1.149m to Camphill Communities of Ireland during 2016.

My Department no longer operates a National Lottery Fund. However, the HSE operates a similar scheme and continues to provide grants to health agencies and other organisations from National Lottery funds. Details of the scheme are available at .