Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 24 November 2022

Public Accounts Committee

Financial Statements 2021: National Lottery Fund

9:30 am

Photo of Jennifer Carroll MacNeillJennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I will return to the whole shall-may thing. I am sorry to go back to it. It really is a difficult one for us and I will say why. Even looking at the children's referendum and the language around that, the words "shall" and "may" are constantly in debate on legislation. Perhaps as legislators we are overindexing, so to speak, on this point but it really speaks to us. Returning to the licence and how it is operated, I heard what Ms Boate said to the Chair. For the record, clause 6.9.2 of the licence provides that:

Any Expired Unclaimed Prizes shall be forfeited in favour of the Licensee, provided that such Expired Unclaimed prizes shall be used: solely for the promotion of the National Lottery and/or the Lottery Games ... in a manner determined by the Licensee, which shall include the funding of special draws and .... which may include Incremental Marketing.

I wish to ask about the regulator's oversight of the distribution of advertising generally and the scale of advertising. For example, would Ms Boate ever be concerned that media organisations might be reliant on the national lottery advertising funds as a proportion of their budget? I appreciate she would not have oversight but this is a significant annual advertising budget every year. How is it dispersed across broadcast and newspapers? Does Ms Boate have concerns about any of that?