Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

HRI owns some of the race courses and could be accused of favouring its own courses with regard to that. The Indecon report highlights the fact that some race courses are owned by HRI, which acts as the licensing and regulatory authority while the same time being involved in the industry. It throws up a lot of conflicts. In addition to that, we see the situation regarding the development of the Curragh. A number of prestigious individuals are also involved in that deal. It gets very murky to somebody looking at this from the outside who sees a lot of public money going in there and all these guys up to their necks in it. HRI is in the middle of it all. A lot of people are very concerned because €64 million of taxpayers' money is an awful lot of money to put into what is on the face of it a very wealthy industry.