Mr. Brian Kavanagh:

The Deputy has it spot on. The board members are all equal and they are all appointed by the Minister. My clarification in my opening statement was to point out that a number of board members are specified to be put forward from various industry sectors. For example, the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association and the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association put forward nominations. There are provisions in the legislation for the Minister to accept or reject nominations or to come up with alternative nomination methods, if desired. There is a distinction in the 1994 Act and the theory is that there would be various representatives of different parts of the industry and that, on top of that, the Minister would make ministerial nominations. These board members are no different from other board members in terms of their status but the intention is that the sectors of the industry would be complemented by people from outside the industry or those with other skill sets that might be missing on the board. They are all ministerial appointees, however, so it is not as if the Minister does not have any say on who is the trainers' representative, the breeders' representative and so on.

On Deputy Carthy's earlier question, there were 25 overseas winners in Ireland in 2019 and they won €3.4 million. There were 188 Irish winners in the UK and they won €15.3 million. That gives an indication of the balance of payment and power to some extent.