Mr. Brian Kavanagh:

That is a significant item on our risk register. There is much more to racing than just gambling. Interestingly, our research shows that having a bet was only the fourth ranked reason for people going racing.

With regard to media rights, the risk in the strategic plan relates to the dependence of racecourses on them, not HRI. Media rights comprise pictures and commentaries of races and data. The runners in the newspaper this morning and the data are merged together to provide a single media rights package. HRI produces those data. We produce the fields for all races and we have copyright over those data. As the property owners, the racecourses own the pictures. The Deputy is right that we said in our strategic plan that the dependence of racecourses on media rights is a challenge and we are always looking for racecourses to broaden their income base. However, during the Covid crisis it has proven to be a strength because while racecourses have had no commercial revenue from racegoers, as we have had no racegoers at Irish racetracks since last March, they have been able to continue to trade because of the income they get from selling the pictures. With a combination of Government supports and costs that they have been able to take out of their own business, as they have lower costs because the public are not attending race meetings, they have been able to offset their loss of revenue due to the fact that there is an increased demand for the pictures of Irish races. The streaming of races is very popular now. We had an average of 62,000 streams per race at the big Dublin racing festival in Leopardstown two weeks ago. The way in which racing is being broadcast is changing and there is a concern about that. As with all analyses, sometimes one will look at something and see it as a weakness but it can also be a strength if dealt with properly.