Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I only have a certain amount of time and I want to ask other questions, so I would appreciate it if Ms Boate could keep her answers as brief as possible. Let us say that, next year, 99:1 is the split. Would that not concern Ms Boate? To anyone looking in, given the idea that, of the €122 million, 98% of it is gone on marketing, based on that licence agreement, the regulator, in my opinion, would be making a suggestion to the Department that this needs to be looked at. This is the first time we have ever come across this. Obviously, that licence needs to be changed. I do not think it is fair. It would have been my opinion that the regulator would have told us but there has never been a suggestion to the Department to change this. I recommend today that the regulator makes such a recommendation to tally with what we are probably going to recommend, hopefully. This is not sustainable. It is basically not fair or appropriate.

I want to ask a few other questions. My first question is to the Department and Mr. Nolan. We are bringing in the gambling legislation and I acknowledge the whole issue of the national lottery is slightly different. In the wild earthly world, I cannot see why we will need two regulators, and that is not a judgment on anyone, or anything like that. Gambling is gambling, and I like to gamble the odd time. The gambling legislation is going to cover all of the various different aspects of gambling, particularly the whole move into the online world. If we look at the national lottery, as I did last night, and forgetting about the lotto games, I counted 40 online scratchcard versions of games, which amazed me. Someone can lose €20 or €30 in a matter of minutes. That is no different to going into gaming on paddypower.com, BoyleSports, Ladbrokes or anything like that. Where one is different from the other is becoming more and more blurred all the time. They need one regulator, in my opinion. I know the Minister said the national lottery is bespoke but surely with one regulator and legislatively, through a licence, we can manage that slight differential with regard to good causes as part of that. I would be surprised if this committee does not make this suggestion. Will the Department look at having just one regulator? To be honest, this is smoke and mirrors when we look at that amount of gambling.