Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I see it, a person cannot but see signage for the national lottery. When he or she drives down the street in any place in rural Ireland, there will be a sign on a lamp post outside of a shop saying "National Lottery", there will be a lotto checker at the door as that person goes into the shop, and there will be a terminal sitting on the counter where that person must go to pay for the goods he or she wants to buy.

There are big billboards with a local person or someone from the county who may have won a prize on them. They show gigantic cheques, which we are used to thinking of in connection with People in Need. There are big flat-screen televisions showing how much the lotto prize is. If one happens to download the app to check lotto tickets, one is reminded on a daily basis to play the lotto. There is a huge difference in the aggressive marketing by this private company and the marketing when the State had the contract. Is Ms Boate not concerned? The national lottery is important and it has done a lot of good but it also has gambling at its core. Aggressive marketing is very dangerous. Is Ms Boate not concerned about that in terms of what we have seen happening since PLI took over the contract?