Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Advertising in respect of gambling is of considerable interest to the Oireachtas at the moment because of the gambling legislation before the Houses, which will be familiar to the witnesses. Indeed, I have to take this opportunity to correct the record. I received correspondence from PLI this morning. I had been speaking to the Gambling Regulation Bill on Second Stage in the Dáil on Tuesday. We have talked about how I have been noticing advertising since our engagement with the national lottery regulator, and I spoke about how I had seen a Christmas millionaire advert, where somebody is having difficulty passing over an envelope. I said I had seen it during "The Late Late Toy Show", but that was in error because it was not during that show. Helpfully, Premier Lotteries Ireland sent me all the advertising detail to show the advert had not been aired during the toy show, but I will explain why I had thought that was the case. I had recorded the toy show and was watching it with my seven-year-old son at, say, 6 p.m. on Sunday. I was sitting with my child watching the recording of it but we turned it off because it was boring and we decided to watch the soccer instead. It was during the soccer, at a child-friendly TV time in the evening, that I saw the advert again and again. That is where I made the mistake and I am happy to correct the record.

Helpfully and for the benefit of the committee, PLI wrote to me and I will put on the record of the committee what it said because it is important. It attached a spreadsheet of adverts for the show and the repeats. The letter states, "We take our commitments on responsible advertising very seriously", and refers to an advertising code of practice it has in place with the regulator of the national lottery. It was the first I had heard of that code but why would I have known about it? In fairness to PLI, it outlined it had directed RTÉ not to air those adverts during the toy show and to ensure it would be in compliance with its own advertising code with the regulator. The mistake I made was that I had not considered it amounted to responsible advertising, which is why I was watching the show with a child.

There are many different things going on in the Oireachtas relating to advertising and that is why the witnesses are being asked all these questions about it. Obviously, marketing is a key piece of their work. Because of all these concerns, will they set out the proportions, insofar as they can, that relate to the €17 million used annually to the funds from PLI’s own base marketing resources? Will they set them out insofar as they can within their commercially sensitive concerns?