Mr. Mike O'Kane:

I wish to clarify several technical points. On the graph we included in the submission on the value of one or two meetings per day, the reason there appears to be a disconnect is simply in an Irish retail betting shop Irish racing competes with the UK product. If there is one Irish meeting and three UK meetings on a particular day, it may get its fair share of airtime or customer attention, but if there is another meeting on the same day, the timings may well clash. That is why an extra meeting would not necessarily double the value of the turnover generated. Rather than having four meetings covered in a betting shop, there would be five to be covered, together with everything else going on.

The tax model in Ireland means that it does not matter on what people bet because the tax applies to everything. However, it makes a big difference in selling the rights abroad. Wearing my UK hat, if I was looking to buy four fixtures today and I already had three UK fixtures, would I buy a second Irish fixture if the number of fixtures moved from four to five? The fifth fixture, as indicated, would be of lesser value.

The Irish fixtures programme should not be governed by what is happening throughout the world, but it must be mindful of the extent to which events can be monetised. Of the €30 million which goes to Irish racing from its media rights, only 10% of the value comes from Irish bookmakers. A total of 90% of the €30 million comes from UK-based organisations buying the pictures. The danger in not being aware of this fact is that in 2017 or 2018 the UK retail sector might not want the extra fixtures, which would make a very big hole in the funding of Irish racing.

A question was asked about another organisation which received three quarters of its profits online. I am not sure which organisation this is because clearly it is not ours. I wish we made three quarters of our profit online.

None of the bookmakers that represent their numbers online indicate where that revenue comes from. Much of the revenue from one of the bookmakers the committee may be thinking about comes from other jurisdictions where there may not be the same kind of retail environment. Online numbers can be very complicated.

The Senator who has now left asked about the growth in the value of betting on football. As our submission shows, retail betting in Ireland has declined and continues to decline. Some of that has transferred to online but that does not make up the difference in the Irish market. All of us in this industry, working together, have to decide that where there is a revenue stream from Irish online and retail businesses, we can take this product and sell it abroad. The elephant in the room is how will media rights be discussed, advised and how will everyone buy into them when signing them in the future.

The number of runners per race is decided by several factors, for example, are they playing in Dublin, what is the horse population, what is the racing structure, how is that race made up, which horses qualify for that particular race, what else is going on and prize money. The British Horseracing Authority, BHA, has the same problem in that the average number of runners per race appears to be falling. In fact, the average is a false number. Certain race types are suffering because the horse population in those classes is weak and there is probably too much of that particular type of race whereas the other types of race are constantly divided. Subtle changes may help the race fixture programme, in terms of the number of runners per race not in that particular example, but in other areas.

Horse Racing Ireland, HRI, has full responsibility for media rights. All I and others ask is that we are party to how those media rights are monetarised to ensure there is equitable sharing of those benefits through the industry. I support the comments made by other members here.