Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have to look at all the possibilities because the Government has to look for sources of funding.

The witnesses seemed to emphasise the question of why betting duties should go to horse racing, given that so little of the betting is actually on Irish horse racing. That is a good question and there is an argument in favour of a "hypothecation" as they call it, that is, that a particular tax is given over to a particular purpose. The Department of Finance hates hypothecation. The Department would get the money in the form of a lump sum and then decide how it is going to distribute it but it wants to have all the money to play around with at the beginning of the year. There is only an advantage in hypothecation if more money is going to be raised. It is fair to say that the public does not tend to see investing in horses as a good industry investment. It is actually much happier for us to invest in multinational high-tech and software companies. For some reason I cannot understand the public is not so keen on investing in thoroughbred horses, although they are huge earners for the country and we have a natural advantage in this area.

If that is a problem, it makes sense to look at hypothecation, even though there is no direct relationship. Does the objection come from the bookmakers?

The bottom line of the submission is a plea for no further taxes. Is that because of the competition with the online service or is it because it is believed the turnover on betting would drop? Of course, we cannot know the answer to that unless we get the figures for the online betting and learn whether they have grown as betting with bookmaker shops has dropped and then factor in the drop in the economy.