Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One thing that has concerned me over the past number of years is the business of obtaining a licence or authorisation to sell lottery tickets. There have been some examples of shops that have not been able to get permission to sell lottery tickets. Any time I have made a representation on their behalf, the response has been less than satisfactory, to say the least.

I always thought that this type of protectionism was holding back the lottery and I hope that when the licence goes out this will change and that any able shop will be able to sell lottery tickets in a normal, competitive environment. There have been allegations of favouritism and protectionism. They were never really brought to the surface but were certainly made to me by individual shopkeepers. I hope this area is opened up because how on earth one gets permission to sell lottery tickets as an authorised seller appears to be a mystery. It is quite lucrative and should not be done in the way it used to be done years ago where certain shops were the only ones allowed to sell newspapers and other shops were not newsagents. We are much better off now and I would like to see this area opened up. I just wanted to put that on the record.