STIG InveSTIGates

STIG takes a look at the Department of Sport grant allocations.

By John Craddock

On 16^th May last year, the Government received the report of the National Task Force on Obesity. We were told of how serious this issue is. Indeed Bertie Ahern went as far as to say –

"Government is taking a proactive approach to the issue ... I recognise multi-sectoral collaboration and cooperation as the optimum way forward and will be prioritising this as the most effective means of approach."

We weren't sure exactly what Bertie meant by that so we decided to look a little deeper into the issue. In 2004 the Department of Sport allocated just over €125 million to sports clubs and organisations through its main funding schemes. On the face of it, this seems quite generous. The devil, as always, is in the detail. Of this €125m, just over half, €67m was allocated to the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund. Horse racing got €53.5m and the dogs got €13.4m. Every other sport shared the remainder, €54m, between them. Of this, the biggest grant, €1.5m, was given to Killarney Town Council for the Killarney Sports and Leisure Centre and the smallest grant was €1,000, which many small clubs and groups were awarded.

When the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund was set up in 2001, it was sold to the public as being funded by the offcourse betting levy. The following extract from the agriculture minister's speech, however, makes it clear that the link between the levy and the fund only worked in one direction;

"we are proposing in the Bill that HRI [Horse Racing Ireland] and Bórd na gCon will between them receive this year from the exchequer funds equivalent to the revenue generated from excise duty on offcourse betting last year which amounts to a total of about £46m. This will be divided between the two bodies on a four to one basis with HRI to get 80% or roughly £37m and Bórd na gCon will be given over £9m. In future years these bodies will receive the equivalent of the revenue generated from the excise duty in the preceding year or the £46m they get this year increased by the consumer price index, whichever is the greater."

The decoupling of the horse and dog fund from the betting levy has proven to be a good move for those industries. The levy was 5% in 2001 but has been reduced several times and now stands at 1%. It is expected to bring in €25m this year, covering about a third of the cost of the racing fund.

At the same time as the income from the betting levy is dropping, the amount of money spent on horse and dog racing is set to rise. According to the Department of Sport –

In 2004, the Government put in place regulations to increase the limit of the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund from €254 million to €550 million and to continue the Fund for a further four years to 2008 ... By the end of 2004, Horse Racing Ireland and Bórd na gCon received €206.4 million and €51.6 million respectively from the Fund since its inception in 2001.

This means that the annual grant to horse and dog racing has been increased to an average of about €75 million a year between now and 2008, significantly more than every other sport in the country combined receives in grant aid. STIG can't see how it's doing the health of the nation any good that the majority of the Dept of Sport funding goes to nonparticipation sports.

Sources:

This article originally appeared in STIG volume 6, issue 3.

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