Rowing club grant - Independent body must oversee fund

By invoking the notion of “ministerial discretion” to justify the waiving of the rules to grant €300,000 to Killorglin Rowing Club, Sports Minister John O’Donoghue is being somewhat mischievous.

If there were no criteria for distributing sports capital grants, then Mr O'Donoghue just might be able to sustain such a proposition.

But there are such rules and his contention amounts almost to endowing a minister with the equivalent of a royal prerogative to override them when it is convenient.

And there is no more convenient time than before a national election.

That is precisely what happened in this case and it is hard to disagree with Labour's Kathleen Lynch, who has submitted Dáil questions on the issue, when she describes it as a "blatant example" of electioneering.

The simple fact of the matter is that Mr O'Donoghue, then Minister for Justice, lobbied his colleague, then Sports Minister Jim McDaid, and the assessment criteria was changed to benefit the Killorglin club just one month before the last general election.

Consequently, the club was granted almost half the cost of their €690,000 new boathouse.

Wearing his hat as Minister for Sport, Mr O'Donoghue's department granted them another €250,000 last year.

So, from being excluded for a grant, the club, in Mr O'Donoghue's constituency, ultimately obtained an extraordinary 80% of the cost of their project.

Killorglin's new boathouse is, no doubt, a very worthwhile project, but every other sporting organisation would claim they should be entitled to as much funding if not more. That is why there are assessment criteria which should be adhered to for the sake of equity.

Sports grants are funded by money from the National Lottery which should not be available as a slush fund to be distributed as a form of largesse by the Government of the day.

Therefore, it is essential that responsibility for awarding those grants be made the responsibility of an independent body and protected from the subjective discretion of any minister, or Government.