Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has provided some clarity. I seek further clarity, and forgive me if I sound pedantic in what I am about to say. I will stand corrected if I am wrong. I again ask the Minister of State to clarify section 148(2) which states, "A licensee may not offer a person or specific group of persons an inducement". Do I take it that the practical outworkings of that, where you have vulnerable people in particular who are addicted to gambling, are that offering free bets or a free €5 bet will now be outlawed, as it were?

Is that the case consequent to this amendment?

I praise the Minister of State and his officials for being specific in the language they use. The Bill provides that companies "may offer the general public a benefit or advantage", but the Minister of State is covering himself subsequently by saying "a licensee may not offer a person or specific group of persons an inducement". In other words, that ensures that unscrupulous operators could not parse out a category of vulnerable people and offer them the inducements, calling them a group or the general public, if you will. I want it to be clear for people who are watching the debate, as some fear was expressed heretofore about inducements being offered to individuals. Respectfully, I ask the Minister of State, through the Chair, to clarify again in his response that this will outlaw the practice of offering specific inducements to persons. The example I will use is the offer of specific categories of bets.

Notwithstanding the bona fides of the Minister of State here present in the lifetime of this Government and given his mandate, a subsequent incumbent of the office who is charged with this new regulatory body, a future Minister, may set aside any of these regulations. I wonder whether we in the House should put in place a cast iron guarantee that the regulations be made here on the factory floor, so to speak, and that they cannot be unwound at some future date because we never know who will be in office down the line. If we had a Minister with a more libertarian view, whose ear the betting lobby had or who could be influenced by the betting lobby, these regulations could be unwound quite easily. I wonder if we should take a more robust approach at this stage to ensure we outlaw once and for all the idea of the inducements, especially as they relate to individuals.

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