Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with that assessment. I must again say that I am often astounded by the number of regulatory bodies we have that will do anything to avoid regulating. What the committee shared with the ASAI was an anomaly that found that its previous finding was incorrect. We dispute the assertion, and I think most reasonable people would do so as well, that prize money and commissions paid to retailers can be classified as giving money back to the community. Even if we were to accept that claim, within the allocation of prize money we have found that a portion of it, in fact a substantial proportion of the unclaimed prize money, is invested in marketing, which even the ASAI accepts does not constitute giving money back to the community.

Even if we were to accept what has been classified as a very broad definition of returning money to the community, we have raised with the authority and brought to its attention a technical detail that finds its previous finding was not valid factually. I would have thought a regulatory body such as the ASAI would welcome this information. Instead, it is doing what seems to be the default position of many of these bodies, which is to pass it back and hope it goes away. I agree, therefore, with Deputy Murphy's proposal that we submit this as a complaint. We should make it clear we are disputing the authority's previous finding based on the information this committee gleaned from our engagement with the representatives of the national lottery and the regulator.