Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 11 March 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Operations and Functioning of National Lottery: Discussion

2:15 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their submissions. I was one of those who opposed the sell-off and it does not altogether surprise me that since privatisation, what the witnesses appearing to be hinting at is occurring. Since the national lottery was first established 27 years ago, we have had 27 years in which the lottery worked perfectly and which never experienced an outage. Its brand recognition and credibility were untarnished in all of those years and as soon as it was handed over to Camelot and this other gang called PLI, things started to go belly up. That pretty much tells its own story, does it not? I acknowledge that the witnesses are here to ring alarm bells and many of the questions must be directed towards PLI. However, apart from smiling and talking to the witnesses in an open way, do the witnesses think the national lottery is taking on board the concerns they have raised with it in terms of adequate investment and the right decisions on technology and the data? Jobs were mentioned and is there evidence or do the witnesses know whether the numbers of people employed have reduced or are inadequate? I invite them to elaborate on that a little.

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