Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with other colleagues about the election in the North today. I know many people in this House, like my colleagues, Senators Richmond, Feighan, Marshall, the Leader, and so on, have done extraordinary work and will continue to do that, so it is to be hoped it will be a good result. I was at a launch in the audiovisual room this morning of a very important report on direct provision. There are 43 very strong recommendations in the report. I know we are only after having statements on direct provision, but maybe in the new year it would be no harm to bring the Minister in to discuss that particular report, because a lot of work went into it. It is a very strong report. There were a lot of people from the NGO sector at the event this morning, and I certainly believe that some of the recommendations are worthy of serious consideration. I have no doubt that the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, will consider them.

The situation that has emerged in the past couple of days regarding the national lottery is very worrying. It is a private company. We pass legislation here to sell the licence. While people at the time back in 2013 to 2014, including me and Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell in particular, raised concerns about the principle of selling the national lottery and selling this important State asset to a private company under licence, what has emerged today and in the past couple of days about €180,000 of prizes that were advertised but were not included on the tickets for sale is very worrying. There is a regulator of the national lottery. Its job is to regulate one company, the national lottery. There are ten people working in the lottery regulator's office. The regulator has full, real-time access to all of the sales reports and games of the national lottery, yet it was an internal audit of the national lottery itself that discovered it. I want to know what the regulator is doing. It seems like a shocking waste of money for an office of ten people. I really believe that the national lottery regulator needs to consider her position, and the Minister needs to come in to the House and give an update on exactly what reporting structures this regulator has with Government. It is a very serious situation. The members of the public who spend their few euro on national lottery games should have the confidence that the integrity of the process is protected.