Mr. John Osborne:

I do not want to take up too much of the committee's time, but the beauty of the scheme is the four big pluses with it, the first of which is the rewards for winning owners. Mr. Morris will know more about this. Second, we can actually target the bonuses to a specific sector of races. We have specifically gone for median auction, two-year-old races, and fillies' maidens. These are places where the commercial stock are most likely to be participating. The winner of those races, therefore, who gets the €10,000 is most likely a person who is going to spend that money back into the same sector of the commercial end of the market.

The third plus of the scheme is that it multiplies the spend. When the winner with the €10,000 to spend, in the form of a voucher, has to buy a horse, we have seen that it is at least a four-fold increase because that person must put some of his or her own money with it. This raises the market. Obviously, a rising tide lifts all boats, but there are specifics to it. I suppose the challenge for the breeding sector is to present animals that the market wants to buy. As the Senator will be aware, this does not always work but in general terms it is a very good scheme for spreading it as wide as we can in the circumstances of the amount of money available to us.