Mr. Brian Kavanagh:

They are ahead of budget for the first six months and the Tote is very dependent on Galway and Punchestown racecourses along with the Christmas race festival at Leopardstown racecourse. However, the summer tracks are the backbone of racing. In response to the Chairman's point, the total capital spend on racecourses in the past 15 years was €200 million and HRI provided €106 million of that. HRI operates a policy of only providing grants of around 50%, which is much lower than other sports capital grants and Bord na gCon grants, which can be between 80% and 100%. We have always operated on the principle that we want the racecourses themselves to put up money and, in fairness, the racecourses have done this. The €200 million referred to includes the creation of three new racecourses in Dundalk, Limerick and Cork and a great deal of work at other racecourses. Major projects remain at the Curragh and Leopardstown.

To follow up on the point made by Mr. Keeling, when one looks at the list of grants to racetracks in descending order one will see that the first HRI owned track appears at number five, the second appears at number seven, the third at number nine and the fourth appears somewhere around number 17. We try to be as fair as possible on the issues of fixtures and grants.