Mr. Kevin Murphy:

The late bets and uncollected winnings issue is a social responsibility issue and we are saying there is a clear need for the Government to deal with it by way of legislation, unless the industry wishes to show that it is really interested in social responsibility and puts a voluntary procedure in place. With regard to quantifying it in financial terms, there are approximately 1,000 shops operating in Ireland. It is difficult to quantify the amount of late bets or uncollected winnings, but one source estimates it to be approximately €1 million per annum. As regards the heads of the Bill and social responsibility, we believe late and uncollected bets should be treated by legislators in the same way as dormant bank deposit accounts. If the bet is not collected after a certain period of time, instead of pocketing the money the industry must hand it to the Government to be used for socially responsible purposes.