Syndicate will have a gas time spending €2.5m win

SEÁN O’REILLY was in generous mood last night as his work syndicate celebrated their €2.5 million Lotto win.

Nine colleagues from BOC Gases in Dublin’s Bluebell industrial estate scooped last Wednesday’s jackpot.

As two of the group wished to remain private, it was down to the Magnificent Seven to ride into town to collect the winnings - a cool €284,289 each.

“Absolutely brilliant,” enthused Seán, as they relaxed in Wynn’s Hotel. “You read about it and hear about it from other people, but it is so real when it happens to you. And the beauty about it was that there were nine of us in it. It wasn’t just one person winning a lot of money. It was a divide among nine people.

“It was brilliant for the younger people with kids and mortgages. And we’re all delighted for them.

“Everybody was ecstatic on Thursday. I can honestly say that in the office in BOC, everybody was congratulating us, and I kept saying to them: ‘unfortunately, I feel terribly sorry that everybody is not involved in it.’

“It would have been lovely if everyone was involved in it but unfortunately that’s not the way it works.” Transport maintenance manager at the Dublin firm, Seán has worked at BOC Gases for the past 35 years.

“We’ve been doing the Lotto for a long number of years and we only changed the Lotto syndicate weight weeks ago.

“We had a Lotto syndicate and people left and other people were down the country, so we decided to move to a different syndicate.

“Each of us puts in €20 per draw and that covers us for the Wednesday and the Saturday. It was my turn to pay last Wednesday.”

Seán says he will first “look after” his mother, his two children and four brothers and sisters, and take it from there.