Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The committee has had Rásaíocht Con Éireann, RCÉ, before it and this has been an issue over the years. There have been issues, for example, with animal welfare, how much the RCÉ allocates to welfare, overbreeding and so on, which are probably matters for a sectoral committee. Nonetheless, welfare is an important issue. Only two tracks were found to be economically viable and if we were to remove the prize money, none of them stood up with regard to paying their way without State intervention. I would have thought those kind of issues would scream a mile regarding value for money.

I had intended asking questions on this matter in any event but then a report concerning another sport came out last week and was reported on in the newspapers. It was done for the Football Association of Ireland, FAI. There is no doubt that if one looks at this just from the point of view of excise duty, online betting would not have been a feature when this fund was established initially. A huge amount of betting takes place online on a whole range of sports. I expect soccer is one of the significant ones, if not the most significant other one. Yet, there has been no change in the fund. I presume legislation would be required to change that.

We are conscious of what is allocated to other sports but the amount allocated to horse and greyhound racing is unique. There is a lot of competition from Sport Ireland with regard to the amount of funds they can allocate. Was that aspect considered at any point in relation to the change in the nature of how that excise duty is derived?