CAMELOT, the company that runs the British national lottery, affirmed that it has never endorsed the sale of its games in the Republic of Ireland and has no interest in ever doing so.
A spokeswoman for Camelot said it had no problem with a decision by the Government to crack down on the sale of British lottery tickets.
Yesterday the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, said he was asking the Department of Justice to deal with the illegal sale of British lottery tickets. The spokeswoman for Camelot said "The Republic has its own very successful lottery and we do not endorse selling outside our licence area. This includes Northern Ireland."
A spokeswoman for the National Lottery said the move to change the regulations to make the selling of British lottery tickets illegal would bring Ireland into line with the rest of Europe.
Ireland was the only country in which a foreign non authorised game could be made available and sold. British lottery tickets were being sold without any regulations governing them.
She said that £20 million a year was being spent on British lottery tickets. This was money which was leaving the Irish economy. It was assumed that some of that money would otherwise have gone to the National Lottery, and would have benefited Irish recipients of lottery funds.
Earlier, Mr Quinn said shops selling British lottery tickets were "breaking the law and doing extraordinary damage to the National Lottery and to other lotteries, especially Rehab."
He said to restrict sales of lottery tickets in each country to a particular scheme was legal under EU competition law.
The National Lottery spokeswoman said its agents understood that they could not sell a rival game. Its 2,500 Lotto and 1,000 scratch card agents were facing competition from the British lottery, which offered a higher commission. The National Lottery gives its agents 6 per cent, compared with IS to 20 per cent from the British lottery.
The National Lottery had briefed the Minister for Finance and had sought clarification on the issue. Its agents would be very happy with the decision, she said.
The director general of RGDATA, the association of retail grocers, Mr Michael Campbell, said his members were among those selling the British lottery tickets. He welcomed the clarification, saying it was long overdue and there had been too much uncertainty.
The chief executive of Rehab, Mr Frank Flannery, welcomed the "urgency" with which the Government was tackling the issue of illegal sales of British lottery tickets. Sales of Rehab scratch cards had already fallen from £10 million to £5 million due to "anti competitive Irish legislation. The entry of the UK lottery has threatened to further exacerbate this position."