Mr. Bill Cox:

There was certainly no negative intention in expressing the data about the legislative position in EEA and EU member states. It is just simpler, where there are six states that do have the legislation and 22 that do not, to state the position in that way.

The Deputy asked about the data for the U2 and Coldplay concerts in July 2017. We asked Ticketmaster for data on the number of people seeking tickets on the website during the first hour of general sale of those tickets. We reduced that figure by 25% to take account of people who were active on two devices such as a laptop and a phone. We multiplied by the number of tickets bought per transaction for those two concerts. This gave us the rough demand for tickets for the two concerts combined. We then asked the main platforms for the numbers of tickets resold for these events and it gave us a fairly reliable figure for the number of tickets that were on the secondary market which could have been on the primary market and available for buyers. The facts are, as we stated in the presentation, that the number of tickets on the main platforms for the two concerts combined would have met less than 5% of the unsatisfied demand for tickets on the primary market. The Deputy said that the GAA could have put on an extra date. We are not trying to undermine the proposed legislation but it might not meet some of its objectives. The problem is not that people cannot get tickets because of a secondary market. They cannot get tickets because supply outruns demand by three to one, as it did in this case.