Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I know this is an issue to which the Minister of State is personally committed but I cannot accept, and I do not think anyone else on the committee can accept, that it is a priority for the Government. The Minister of State said it is a priority for the Government but clearly it is not. We know what priorities for the Government look like and how they operate. The Government decided the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, was a priority and three years later it is still meandering its way through the Oireachtas eating up a large amount of resources. The reason no substantive legislation has been introduced is that it is not a priority for the Government. We regulate many types of behaviour in society and it is astonishing that, to date, we have not regulated gambling, which has such a negative impact on people's lives.

We all agree there needs to be a regulatory authority but when will the heads of the Bill be published? When will it be introduced in the Oireachtas? What type of regulatory authority is the Minister of State looking at? Will it be something like the Legal Services Regulatory Authority? Unfortunately, with gambling we need a body, a group of people or an entity, working on this every day of the week, rather than circumstances in which the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Flanagan, sometimes looks at the issue, the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, sometimes looks at it and the committee sometimes looks at it. We need a regulatory authority working on this matter every day of the week coming up with its own rules that would be made statutory instruments. This is not happening.