Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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Relative to other organisations, however, HRI is certainly in a very fortunate position to have a whole area of tax in the State ring-fenced for the purposes of its activities. Ms Eade would have to agree a lot of organisations would envy its position, as would the promoters of many other activities in the country.

We will move on from that because I want to follow on from what Deputy Carthy asked. He raised a number of issues but I will focus on the core one. I am going to run a number of issues by Ms Eade and she can tell me whether I am wrong. She knows as well as I do that the owners of a number of the smaller racecourses feel aggrieved at the way HRI is collecting and distributing its share of media and data rights money. This goes back to the days of the Turf Club. The original arrangement, as I understand it, was that 7% of the deal being done with satellite information systems was for data, while the much more lucrative media rights, at 93%, were to go to the racecourses, and that situation continued until 2011. The regulator was basically getting 7% and the racecourses were getting 93%.

When HRI was in the saddle as the sole permitted negotiator for all this, when it was negotiating one big cake for the sale of data and media rights, by bringing in the fixture charge of €13,500 give or take in respect of each event, that meant that the overall take from the sale of data and media rights was no longer 7% for HRI but rather was something more like 16%. By definition, this means a smaller percentage of the core of the cake goes directly to the racecourses. I do not think I am misrepresenting Mr. Morris by saying he indicated that the lion's share of the money being spent on capital and racecourse development goes to the larger courses, some of which HRI owns.

Some of the smaller racecourses feel that while it is true that they accepted this new arrangement, they did so under a form of duress because they were not in a position to look elsewhere. Is this not a fact? Horse Racing Ireland is the sole permitted negotiator of this deal and is now getting 16% of the total cake but distributes it disproportionately to the bigger firms. In terms of the money that is distributed from the media rights directly back to the racecourses, the bigger courses get something like €300,000 of a cut off the top whereas the smaller courses get €65,000 and only the remainder is divvied out more or less on a fixture-by-fixture basis.

As I understand from my sources, and others will have similar sources in the racing industry, the smaller racecourses feel that HRI has abused its position, and continues to do so, by taking a much greater share of the overall data and media rights money than it used to take. Moreover, it is distributing it disproportionately to larger racecourses. Not only that but because of the fungibility of money and the fact that HRI effectively takes more money away from the racecourses before anything is distributed, HRI is then using that money for capital and racecourse development and I put it to the chief executive that the authority has distributed that money disproportionately to the larger racecourses, some of which it owns. Of course that frees up the €70 million that HRI gets from the State to a much greater degree.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I think there is a ministerial directive that 50% of the money that comes from the State would be used for development. As far as I understand, in 2021 either €42 million or €46 million was spent on prize money. That is a much greater percentage and is 60% of the €70 million take that Horse Racing Ireland gets from the State. I do not think there can be any issue about confidentiality in terms of deals already done. For taxpayers to assess for themselves or to their satisfaction how HRI uses the €70 million, they need to know the authority has managed to negotiate €35 million a year on a multi-annual basis for data and media rights. As present, HRI is taking about 16% of that.

Does the chief executive accept there is concern among the owners of smaller racecourses that they are in a situation where they can only deal with one auctioneer, which is the HRI? As under legislation, the HRI is the sole auctioneer, the smaller racecourses must take what they get and the authority is taking more than it used to take. Is that not the case?