Ms Suzanne Eade:

One of our jobs, as HRI, is to negotiate, in consultation with the executives of the authorised racecourses, all income from media rights. We do that. To be perfectly honest, the media rights committee has done an excellent job. Going back 20 years when the media rights was at "X" value, it has grown fivefold as a result of the work done by the media rights company so I am very comfortable that racecourses are getting a strong share of a very strong media rights fund.

Together, the HRI and the AIR have worked really hard to improve the quality of pictures of data through investing in systems etc. to make sure that the quality and, therefore, the overall media rights pie has grown for Irish racing. HRI is not abusing its position. I refute that and the Senator has made a regrettable statement because we have invested in many small racecourses. Some of those racecourses are small and they have received a lot of grant funding over the last number of years. I can mention Sligo and Roscommon, which have had significant capital investment.

Mr. Morris has already explained that this is not money we are taking from the racecourses. This is funding that we were entitled to for the fixtures. It is the person who is buying the rights who determines what value that is.