Mr. Arthur Cooper:

That is where we see the future. What we would love to achieve in 25 years is exactly what Horse Racing Ireland, HRI, has done. In 1992 HRI started by developing the breeding industry for international markets. Europe is on our doorstep. They need horses. We look at Ireland and see a real economic opportunity. Like everything we do, however, it must be nurtured. We want to develop this breeding industry so that in a decade it will be something of which Ireland can be very proud.

Dundalk Stadium was mentioned. That concern has been very generous to us. It is the only racetrack in Ireland that we are using, apart from Portmarnock Raceway and some locations in the North. We also race on grass. We use Dundalk Stadium for the LeTrot PMU premium meeting. Hopefully they will be kind enough to come to some arrangement with us. I do not want to go into financial details here, but that commission is very nice, with a 3% headline on that turnover of €750,000. However, there is significant expense in using a third-party racetrack for which payment is required. If we had our own track we would not have to pay rent. The cost-benefit breakdown of renting is one of the reasons we did not push as hard as we could have for conditional PMU meetings. Dundalk is a great site and looks very well on television. When I was in Paris last year I watched the meeting, and both Dundalk and Ireland came across very well. They put together a very good programme. I would award full marks to Dundalk Stadium. The management has been very helpful to us last year and this will hopefully continue this year.

We have markets lined up in Australia. I am in discussions with partners in North America. There are very good opportunities to bring Irish harness racing there on a regular basis. This will not come about for at least 12 months, or at least until a strategic plan has been drawn up and funding is forthcoming. We cannot get a track in the next six or eight months with the current state of play outlined in the Indecon report.

Sponsorship was also mentioned. Yes, we do get sponsorship.