Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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We have to be careful. I have raised the issue of gambling addiction with the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne. The Department of Health has no interest in dealing with this issue. The Department of Justice and Equality can keep deflecting from gambling addiction but the Department of Health and the HSE have no interest in doing anything for anyone with a gambling addiction. If one talks to any front-line health professional, there is no support at all for people with an addiction related to gambling. As someone who is preparing to regulate the industry and potentially impose levies on it and provide a social fund for it, I think the Minister of State is obliged to front up on the healthcare aspects of this. We are all fed up with hearing the old Whitehall model of excuse, that it is a different Department's responsibility. We hear about interdepartmental collaboration and cross-departmental engagement in respect of climate change in particular. The Minister of State should take the lead on the addiction issue because the Department of Health has no interest. It has not implemented Crystal Fulton's recommendation on a gambling addiction strategy. I do not believe that the health system will provide for those with a gambling addiction in the short to medium term. It is an opportunity for the Department of Justice and Equality to do something. Perhaps it could develop a private pathway for those with a specific addiction. It is not good enough to keep deflecting to the Department of Health because, as the Minister of State knows as well as I do, it will not do anything about the problem. We have to flag that now because if any of us are here in years to come, the Department of Health will have done nothing about this. Together with my former colleagues, Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, I submitted parliamentary questions on it to which the Department did not even respond. We need to see more from the Minister of State and his Department, which is trying to do something about it. I support the amendments from Deputy Ó Laoghaire because if it gets the Department to start fronting up, that may be good for people in future.