Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Donegal beat Mayo. The fact this is illegal led me to examine this section of the Bill. The point of the correspondence was not that I should report the Taoiseach for involvement in illegal activity in a Paddy Power shop or the journalist or shop owner who may have breached the law when the photograph was printed. The point was instead the archaic laws which exist for this sector. A number of bookie accounts in my Twitter account are giving odds of 10/1 for Argentina to win the soccer match tonight and that type of advertising is illegal in this country. Anybody publicising odds outside a premises, whether in the newspaper or anywhere else, is breaking the law as it stands, and any citizen can report this to the Garda. That is why this element of the law should be repealed.

Paddy Power had an advertisement related to the outcome of the Oscar Pistorius trial, and in my view and that of many others it was deeply distasteful to say the least. The company is involved in innovative ways to advertise its product and some of the advertisements step over the mark, while others are just clever and cheeky. The advertisement to which I refer stepped over the mark. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prohibit any company taking out an advertisement in a national newspaper outlining odds on whether a person will be found guilty of murder, although there is a law against a local bookmaker publishing in the same newspaper odds for "Bodyke Celtic" playing "High Street United" in a local derby. That does not make sense.

This amendment seeks to repeal the section. We should be dealing with a gambling control Bill, and I hope it will tackle this issue. I am concerned that this may be put on the long finger because the Minister has changed. The gambling control Bill must be introduced as a soon as possible and it should have run along with this legislation.