Ms Tara Buckley:

When it first came out, there were mixed reviews from our members. In the past year, however, the national lottery has established a retail programme and done a great deal of work to assist retail agents in terms of their point-of-sale material and the lotto machines they have in-store. Our members would say the star programme the national lottery introduced has been positive for lottery sales. Consumer sentiment has improved slightly albeit not all over the country. Where it has improved, one also sees people back buying lottery tickets, which they were not buying for a few years when sales of everything were down.