Ms Angela Kerins:

No. The charitable lotteries compensation fund was established in 1995 to 1996 in response to a lot of lobbying during the years by the charity lotteries to gain equality and fair play with regard to prize funds. At the time the Government wished to protect the national lottery, but it eventually sat down with us - it would be very desirable for us to have the opportunity to do so again - and negotiated an agreement under which the compensation fund was established. How the different lotteries participate in the fund is that we take an average of our sales over a three year period and divide the percentage of sales. It was a small fund which starting at £5 million and eventually was €6 million. Last year the Minister decided to close it down over a period of three years. That was a great pity because it had been an agreed position. We took that position because it was a means of gaining income for our services. As Mr. Flannery said, in a situation where there is no charitable lotteries compensation fund the cap on prize funds must be eliminated to allow us to build up our business, albeit from a much lower base than in the 1980s.