Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that the entire model of this business is to get more people to gamble more.

That is what the industry needs to happen in order to make more money. It needs more people to gamble more because when that happens, the industry increases the likelihood that more people will become addicted and will become problem gamblers. There is a contradiction in the position that our guests put forward and everyone sees that clearly. That is the difficulty we have here. We need the very firm hand of a regulator to deal with that.

I note from all the correspondence the committee has received and from our guests' opening statements that the industry has various voluntary codes of conduct in place. However, they do not deliver and have failed to deliver up to now. I have not heard a clear answer to my question about what additional concrete steps our guests feel need to be taken to ensure we avoid the problems we have had in the past.