Mr. Arthur Cooper:

Le Trot is very specific about the amount of prize money. It wants to support us. This support was in order to give us more meetings. I will come onto that in just a moment. With regard to the betting tax, of course we would also like to partake. One of the issues which we have always faced, and on which we have always argued, is that the betting tax goes to the greyhounds and the thoroughbreds. While it is not a huge amount, a portion of betting still takes place on harness racing here in Ireland and we do not see any of the tax on it. We believe that we are entitled to some form of remuneration from that betting tax. With the plans I have in place, and in negotiation with the various operators, I would like to think that we can increase the share of and entitlement to the betting tax for harness racing once we get the track and everything up and running.

Does that answer the committee's questions? There was one other thing I was going to say on the governance side of things. With the sub-committees now in place, and with things like the governance training and so on, we want to have a pyramid. We have the board and then the sub-committees, which report up to it. The board has already undergone training over the last 12 months. We saw Indecon 12 months ago. It outlined areas we needed to look at. We have looked at them. Board members have now had formal training. We intend to give them more. The board members have to fund all this training themselves in order to get themselves up to a certain level. From there, we realised that the sub-committees were also in need of governance because they play very important parts and roles within their various disciplines and consequently, will also need corporate governance training. The whole governance issue is very important and it is to the forefront of what we seek to enhance. We believe that if we get the governance right then a lot of things will flow from there.

The bringing on of independent directors was a recommendation. We brought them on six or eight months ago. They are independent directors with expertise in specific areas including the areas of audit and finance, and governance. That is the situation with regard to governance. Does that answer the Deputy's question?

Moving on to Senator Mac Lochlainn, Mr. Flanagan just touched on the French matching funds, which are really important. This year alone Le Trot will give €192,000. This amount has increased over recent years. France has been very generous to us and supports us in a very big way through subsidised horses and prize money subsidies. Instead of the stakeholders racing for €500 or €700, all of a sudden they are racing for €2,000. Therefore they are encouraged to get more horses. What does that mean in turn? Those horses have to be fed, they have to be shod and they have veterinary issues. There is a flow-on effect within the economy from the money which France gives to us for that prize money subsidy.