Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 6 November 2025
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach
Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed)
2:00 am
Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome section 66 but want to make one point on a separate matter as I was doing Leaders' Questions earlier. I want to flag that I will be looking to take an amendment through in respect of the previous section we dealt with, in respect of the VAT application. It falls under this section but it is connected with a previous section, which was in respect of gambling, and to clarify how Revenue is treating the sale of so-called lottery tickets which are not lottery but gaming tickets. Lottery is exempt but gaming is not exempt from VAT. I raised this with the Revenue Commissioners a number of years ago. I have declared an interest before. We operate a lottery licence for a not-for-profit music festival that we run. There have been concerns that others can operate without a licence in the State because they are a game as opposed to a lottery. They ask a question such as, "Where do you find sand - on the moon, in your television or on the beach?". That moves it from a lottery to a game of skill. Therefore it should result in VAT applying to the sale of the ticket. Issues have been raised by those operating these games looking for advice as to whether they have to pay VAT. I would like to seek clarification on that with Revenue. I just wanted to flag that because I missed the previous section when we dealt with the gambling elements of the legislation.