Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Minister and I welcome the confirmation that there will not be any possibility of a trade-off between a larger up-front payment that might cause damage to that revenue stream for good causes.

I had asked in a parliamentary question that the new formula be applied to the most recent revenue figures we have for the national lottery, although I appreciate that the contingencies of increases or decreases in sales must be taken into account, such are the vagaries of the market. It would be very useful to see this formula applied to the most recent sales figures for the national lottery so we can see the maintenance of the revenue flow. I submitted a question on that to the Department and received an unsatisfactory answer; it had a lot of interesting information but it did not answer the question. For those of us who are concerned about the national lottery, particularly the funding for good causes, it would put our minds at rest if the Minister's officials could take the known data from the most recent period, apply the 65% of gross gaming revenue formula, and show us the figure so we can see if it tallies with the €225 million figure.

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