Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I will reply to Deputy Doherty. The 1931 Act provided for closure on Sunday, Christmas Day and Good Friday. Otherwise bookies' shops could stay open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. The Finance Act 1998 provided that Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday were the closed days and that opening hours were from 7 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. from September to March and 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. from April to August. It was in that Bill that the idea of a more tolerant summer season was introduced. The Finance Act 2007 provided that the opening hours from September to March would be up to 10 p.m. where race meetings took place. That was in addition to the provisions of the 1998 Act. The Betting (Amendment) Bill 2013, which I published, stipulated Christmas Day and Good Friday as closing days and opening hours from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. otherwise, and that is what we are doing now. The 7 a.m. start time was contentious when introduced but the situation has settled down. I do not know what trade there is at 7 a.m. but obviously there is some. The amendment in my name now states the opening times as 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. all year round with the exception of Christmas Day and Good Friday.

The reason I do not want to move unilaterally to put a levy on punters is that punters will change and go online. The last time I was at a race meeting I was surprised to see so many people with accounts with online bookies and using their mobile phones to text in bets even from the racecourse rather than bet on course. The online industry is huge. If one looks at Paddy Power's annual report, and he is only one of them, one can see the amount of punting online which is not only on horse racing.

There is some illegal betting all the time. No matter how one cracks down on illegal betting, there will always be a friendly publican who will oblige and say he will run next door, when he gets a few minutes, to put a bet on with the bookies. That does not usually happen. If there is a 3% levy on winnings at the bookies then a punter will think why pay 3% on winnings when one can either go legal online or illegal with a local interested party whom one meets in the course of one's social life. We must keep things going. Whatever we do we will do it online and offline together and that is where I am positioned now. There is 1% levy on traditional bookies and I am attempting to put 1% on online betting which is where we are being held up. One of the things that puts one off the European system is when one sees how long it takes to get a simple process - something like this - concluded and when the delays are built in to help the non-compliant rather than the compliant. That is another day's work. That is my position on the matter.

It is worth saying this is all a kind of subsection of the bloodstock industry. The bloodstock industry in Ireland is world class. It employs about 16,000 people but before the recession it employed in excess of 20,000. The people in the bloodstock industry who brief me have told me that the Irish bloodstock industry is losing its world ranking. They relate that slip to the fact that prizes for races in Ireland are comparatively low, especially for key races. Also, the people with the more expensive and, consequently, better horses are not inclined to stay here because they will not race them here for the prizes that are available here. The big competitors are the UK and, more important, France. As the best of horses are not here, there is a tendency to move stallions out of the country. There are many advantages in France which encourages people to move there, and the industry is greatly concerned. That was why, when I thought we would have a reasonable revenue coming from the betting Bill, we increased the money available to the horse and greyhound racing fund by about €6 million and promised to do so for three years in a row. The horse end of the fund has about €44 million at the moment, of which half was derived from betting because it had to be supplemented in recent years. When the Irish bloodstock industry was ranked next to Kentucky and number one in Europe, it received about €60 million from the fund. My intention is to build up the fund over three years. I have made the commitment to do so in a multi-annual budget and I would like to continue to do that.

I am concerned about bookmakers and their employees in terms of job creation, but I am not somebody who backs horses usually. I am more concerned about ensuring that we have the relationships with the revenue which arises from the bookmaking industry and bloodstock industry. Ireland is rightly famous for its bloodstock and I would not like it if we lost our world ranking. The people at the top of the industry, whom I saw before the budget, were very strongly of the view that this was now the case. That is the context and it is important that Members know the context as we debate these issues. I am no expert and I am open to advice from Members. We will talk about the matter again when the betting Bill comes in.