Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
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Question 104: To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of money that has been collected in the euro millions lottery after prize money has been paid out in each of the past five years; if he will name the owners of the lottery, the projects and countries that benefit from the proceeds of the lottery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44753/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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EuroMillions is owned by nine participating European lotteries. They are:

Belgium: La Loterie Nationale

France: Francaise De Jeux

Ireland: An Post National Lottery Company

Luxembourg: Loterie Nationale

Portugal: Jogos Santa Casa

Spain: Loterias y Apuestaa del Estado

Switzerland : La Loterie Romande

Switzerland: Swisslos

UK: Camelot

Proceeds of the sales of the EuroMillions game generated in the jurisdictions of each of the participating lotteries go to that lottery. Therefore, the proceeds of the sale in Ireland of the EuroMillions game go to the National Lottery Company and the associated surplus generated forms part of the surplus of the National Lottery.

Section 5 of the National Lottery Act 1986 provides that the surplus from the National Lottery may be used for the following purposes: sport and other recreation; national culture, including the Irish Language; the arts, within the meaning of the Arts Act 1951; the health of the community; and for such other purposes as the Government may determine. The following additional categories have been so determined: youth, welfare, national heritage and amenities.

In order to give effect to this statutory provision, the surplus from the National Lottery is transferred to the Exchequer on a regular basis and is applied each year to part-fund the Exchequer allocations to a specified range of expenditure subheads across various Votes. Each year, the amount transferred to the Exchequer from the National Lottery surplus, together with details of the total Exchequer allocations to the relevant subheads are set out in Appendix 1 of the annual "Revised Estimates for Public Services".

The table sets out information in relation to the sales in Ireland by the National Lottery Company of the Euromillions game.

* The figures for the annual expenses associated with the EuroMillions game as stated in the table above are estimated using the total expenses figures for the National Lottery Company in each of the relevant years, and applying the proportion of sales by the National Lottery Company from the EuroMillions game as a percentage of the total sales of National Lottery Company products in that year.