Irish lottery giving will not be affected by sell-off
Howard Lake | 4 April 2012 | News
The Irish Government has said that the National Lottery will maintain the same levels of charitable giving when the licence is sold to a private operator.
Details of the competition for the new National Lottery licence have been published by Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin.
“The ongoing money towards good causes will be retained at current percentage levels,” Mr Howlin said.
There will be a competitive process, and the fixed percentage of 30.5% of annual turnover for good causes will be retained under the new licence.
In 2010 the National Lottery had sales of €772 million from lottery tickets and scratch cards. It gave out €419.9 million in prizes and generated a surplus of €243.7 million for good causes. Currently funding is allocated in four areas: youth, sport, recreation and amenities; health and welfare; arts, culture and heritage; and the Irish language.
There has been criticism that lottery funding is used to plug gaps in statutory funding, with the funding mechanism directly controlled by government departments.
The Minister also said that the proposed new National Children’s Hospital will receive a portion of the upfront payment for the lottery licence. The licence is expected to be awarded at the end of 2013. UK lottery operator, Camelot, is expected to compete for the licence.
www.lotto.ie
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.