Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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In fairness to Deputy Chambers, he has led on this issue. It is regrettable that the Minister of State will only be before the committee for a short time to deal with this. Having heard the comments of Deputy Chambers, I am even more worried about this issue than I was before the meeting because the Minister of State seems to be hiding behind interdepartmental responsibilities and is failing to address what everybody knows is a fact about blatant illegality in this area. Our concern arises from the fact that the Minster of State has been floating the general scheme of a Bill since 2013. The working group was set up and has reported, but we now have this sort of technical Bill that has, in some ways, wasted the time of its drafters and the Department, while the type of gambling control Bill that is required is nowhere to be seen. I ask the Minister of State to provide a bit more information on that. Is that because of lobbying and push-back from the industry? What is causing the delay? The answers given so far by the Minister of State did not really address those issues.