Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

A key concern citizens have is that given the national lottery is, to some extent, a licence to print money, it may be a classic case of selling off the family silver. The lottery has raised approximately €4 billion for good causes and yet in media reports, the Minister seems to be talking about an up-front free for 20 years of only €400 million to €600 million. Is that any kind of a decent deal for the people?

Is the Minister taking the right approach? Would some sort of annual licensing or some sort of seven-year up-front licensing have been a better approach? Is the 20 years set in stone? Why is it 20 years? Camelot in the UK operated on a seven-year licence and it got an extension. An Post operated on a ten-year licence and it also got an extension.

Why has there been such a delay? We were expecting the legislation on this last month and now we are talking about June 2013. Has the Minister had discussions with any of the major operators we are familiar with in Europe, such as Camelot or Lottomatica, the Tatts group or the other large operators, some of which we are involved with in the euro millions scheme?

In the context of An Post, has the Minister has any consultations or discussion with the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, given that the future of An Post is so difficult because of the evolution of e-mail, web-based mail and so on? Has the Minister discussed the matter with An Post? Has he looked back over the experience An Post has had over 25 years in very successfully raising €800 million per annum?

Does the Minister have a baseline figure in his mind which any prospective tenderer would have to be prepared to give to the State? Would it be the current 30% plus for An Post or will the Minister go with Camelot's approach of 28%? Is this set in stone? Is the Minister embarked on the right course or is this a bad deal for Ireland?

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