Public funding Independent body should allocate cash

Improper political intervention to gain a substantial financial benefit for an organisation, virtually on the eve of a national election, is completely unacceptable.

When it happens, as it did in the case of a Kerry rowing club, just prior to a general election, it has serious implications which cannot be ignored.

What occurred in the case of the Killorglin Rowing Club amounts to manipulation of a public funding scheme for sports clubs at ministerial level.

Sports clubs, by virtue of their largely voluntary nature, depend on public support and, in many cases, for funds from Government agencies when capital projects are involved.

By anybody's reckoning, €300,000 is a considerable amount of money, which nobody would begrudge the rowing club had they been entitled to it but they were not.

Under the assessment criteria in place, their application for a grant fell short by several merit points for qualification according to the guidelines of the Department of Sport and Tourism, for which Dr Jim McDaid was minister at the time.

On the intervention of John O'Donoghue, the then minister for justice, his colleague in the sport portfolio decided that a heavier weighting should be awarded to the club's application, with the result that the rowing club got the money.

With the stroke of a pen, the club, which is in John O'Donoghue's constituency, was €300,000 better off just a month before the last general election.

The McDaid approval, for the better part of half of the cost of the €690,000 new boathouse, purported to be based on "the need to achieve an equitable geographical spread of funds and an equitable spread of funds among different sports and community groups."

It would be interesting to see whether an analysis of the new, enlightened "spread" policy was beneficial to any other sporting organisation.

Whatever about such an exercise, the fortunes of the Killorglin Rowing Club did not diminish, but, rather, continued to flourish.

Mr O'Donoghue was transferred from justice to sport and last year their application for a grant of €315,000 to his new department was successful.

The two grants amounted to a very considerable €550,000, for which the club members should be very grateful to Mr O'Donoghue's good offices.

The minister for sport controls substantial funds for distribution to sporting organisations in the form of grants which emanate from the National Lottery.

Last week, for instance, he announced grants totalling €50.8 million for sports facilities on a nationwide basis, but his native Kerry was the major beneficiary and his own constituency of South Kerry did very well.

Local and European elections are less than a month away and it would be naive to expect any minister who has the wherewithal to dispense such largesse under the present disbursement system, not to do so.

Obviously, the system of distributing this funding must be changed so the control rests with a completely independent body which cannot be charged with political motivation in assessing grants.