Mr. Brian Kavanagh:

Okay. The age profile among those who attend race meetings is better than Senator Daly might expect. There is a difference between festival meetings and ordinary meetings. The typical profile of a regular racegoer is older, male and rural, with a strong bias towards the farming community. At the festival meetings, the balance is much better on a gender basis, on a demographic basis and on an age basis. The statistics show that throughout the major festivals and the bigger meetings, we are looking at a 60:40 male-female spread. There is an encouraging mix of younger people coming to the bigger meetings at racecourses like Galway, Punchestown and Leopardstown at Christmas.

There has been a focus on creating racing clubs in the universities. Some race courses operate student days to try to attract the racegoers, owners and breeders of the future at a young age. It is a concern that there is a difference between what one might describe as the more run of the mill race meetings and the festival meetings, but the mix is okay.

The proposed budget for the redevelopment of the equine centre is approximately €22 million. The intention is that, like some other capital projects in the industry, industry funding will be provided as well as Government funding. We will look to fund this through the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine capital funding budget. We have had discussions with the Department about our ability to generate matching funding or funding on a two-for-one basis relative to the funding that comes from the Department to the industry. That is what has happened in many racecourse developments recently. HRI provides 40% of the funding of racecourse developments and the racecourse itself, through its own funds or through fundraising, provides 60%. The budget is €22 million with something like one third or two thirds provided by the State and industry.

The media rights are secure until 2023 and are in a good place. The only issue relating to Brexit is its impact on sterling, as the deals are all in sterling so we could do with it strengthening a little to help the racecourses with their receipts. I do not have a concern along those the Senator outlined about Ireland being excluded from media rights because the product is so strong and is in demand. I attended Cheltenham last Saturday. It was amazing, even at that English race meeting, how much focus there was on what was going on in Punchestown. There was a big screen showing all the Punchestown races and when Faugheen won his race there, a huge cheer went up from the crowd. As long as we keep our product strong and maintain quality, there will be a strong demand for media rights.