Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

General Scheme of the Gambling Regulation Bill: Discussion

Mr. Graham Ross:

Mr. Grand addressed the age verification data issue. There has been a lot of discussion today about research, which is absolutely required in an Irish context. There has also been a great deal of discussion around the ability of operators to identify behaviours and to intervene but the middle piece is getting the data on age verification and affordability checks. If robust data on that middle piece is not available, which it is not at present, then the regulator is going to be hamstrung in terms of doing its job properly. It is absolutely critical that that piece is addressed. The other issue that was not really addressed in our conversation today is the risk of having two gambling regulators in the Irish market covering the national lottery and the rest of the industry. That really needs to be addressed because we are talking about responsibility being split between different Departments and potentially different committees.