Mr. Paul Tully:

It is important that the Irish racing industry is a healthy industry even for the Irish bookmakers. At the moment we pay a 1% tax on our turnover. As Ms Byrne has shown with the figures, we cannot afford to pay any more. Deputy Penrose raised the issue of Horse Sports Ireland and the small owner. That is a key aspect that needs to be brought back into Irish horse racing. At the moment, Irish horse racing is dominated by the big owners and the small owner is playing around for small money on bad racing in the back end of the country. He is not able to compete with the big owner. Irish racing was built on small owners, not the big owners. If there were an incentive for small people to have a horse and run it this would make it more competitive and more people would be brought back into racing, and to the racecourses. This would increase betting and would bring interest into the industry.