THE IRISH CANCER Society (ICS) has revealed that it made a cumulative loss of €420,000 in its lottery between 2009 and 2013.
During that time the cancer charity said it received €1.2 million from the government through the Charitable Lotteries Scheme and so no loss was actually made by ICS itself.
This disclosure follows on from revelations that the Rehab Group made a profit of just €9,452 on close to €4 million worth of lottery scratch cards sales. The details were released by Minister Alan Shatter this week and Rehab defended itself, claiming it had been unfairly impacted by the National Lottery.
In a statement, the the Irish Cancer Society said it has been running a lottery since the 1960s as one of its fundraising projects. In 1990, it started a scratchcard fundraising lottery, in conjunction with the Polio Fellowship of Ireland which is owned by the Rehab Group. The society said this is the only lottery it is involved in and typical prize money is currently between €10 and €100.
According to ICS, the scheme under which it receievd government funding had been set up to shield lotteries from the impact of the cap on prize money and the inevitable loss in income from the competitive advantage awarded to the National Lottery.
“Given the increased losses and with no prospect of recovery, in November last the Society and its partner made a decision to close the lottery”, it said. “This will happen in the next few months and will involve the loss of two jobs.”
This details of funding received from the State were published as part of the charity’s national accounts.
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