Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank representatives of the national lottery operator for coming before the joint committee to make a presentation.

There have been three well publicised outages of the lottery terminals since the new technology was introduced. Why did the national lottery release on the network new technology which is clearly unreliable and vulnerable to breakdown, and do so without any backup in place? Should the technology not have been properly tested before going live? Why was there such a hurry to rush out the new national lottery terminals without first ensuring the ticket self-scanners were functioning? Does the national lottery accept that the decision to roll out the machines without putting scanners in place was a mistake? Most customers believe it was a fundamental error. When will each shop have a ticket self-scanner?

Retailers have complained about poor customer service from the national lottery, and this is adding to their frustration because they bear the brunt of customer anger. Why has there been such a deterioration in service since the switch-over to the new operator? Where are the customer services operations based? Have they been outsourced?

There are two elements to complaints about the national lottery in recent months, namely, the deterioration in the technology offering underpinning the service and the lapse in communications with customers and retailers. Why is the new technology offering creating so many problems? The lottery operated for 26 years without one outage, yet in the three months since the new technology was introduced, we have had at least three breakdowns, including one postponed draw. There is clearly a problem. What is it? The outage on 3 February last was allegedly caused by a snowstorm in Spain. How could a snowstorm in Spain cause a lottery terminal in Killarney to no longer function?

It has been suggested that the new operator has cut back on costs as part of a measure to recoup the €405 million it paid for the lottery licence. Are the technology costs associated with the new national lottery operator lower than those incurred by the previous operator? Is the national lottery planning to increase the price of playing the lotto or add new numbers to the prize draw? If so, when will such changes take place?

Did the national lottery seek the approval of the lottery regulator before postponing the draw on 3 February?