Premier Lotteries Ireland (PLI) has faced scrutiny from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform in a hearing yesterday evening.
Dermot Griffin, CEO of PLI and National Lottery Regulator John Sloyan appeared before the committee to face questions on the cancellation of a draw on the 4th of February this year, as well as on problems with the lottery's in-store technology.
The committee also heard from retailers, who expressed concerns that consumers feel the lottery is paying out less money than before, and that changes are being made to maximise profits for PLI at the expense of players.
Dermot Griffin, who has previously admitted that the IT problems will continue until the end of March, reiterated that the source of the problems was telecommunications provider Telefonica.
He denied that there has been a drop in sales since the system was introduced in November 2014.
Griffin declined to give a direct answer on whether or not lottery players would see a hike in prices, focussing instead on the prizes.
"It is important in terms of prizes, there have been no changes in the games. We will move to game development once we finish transition," he stated.
Regulator Liam Sloyan told the committee than he had received a report about the technical problems and outages from PLI, and that he was currently reviewing it with the aim of making recommendations.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan.
