Mr. Barry Grant:

I will take the read of a former Minister for Justice on that question and I will move on to the next question.

I have grave concerns about the FOBTs. We hear from our clients that there are bars in Ireland with FOBTs in them. There are no bookmakers' shops because there is an unwritten gentleman’s agreement in place. There are pubs in Ireland which are doubly breaking the law because they are not supposed to have any gambling in them at all. That concerns me along. In our submission we propose that there would be no casino products in betting shops and sports betting licences would be kept completely separate from casino gaming licences. We propose that the two products could not be in the same premises.

If there are no limits in the number of licences or potential machines in respect of FOBTs, that could potentially create a situation that is worse than the one that occurred in the UK which had massive issues with FOBTs because the UK at least had a rule limiting to four the number of FOBT machines per betting shop. Then, of course, many of the gambling operators had multiple shops on the same high streets so they could put more machines in those high streets. As per our submission, I would like to see a complete ban on FOBTs and a clampdown on illegal gambling in public houses.

On diversification, I am not entirely clear what the Senator was referring to there. However, not to have a limit on the potential number of licences in the jurisdiction could be a problem, especially when we have a history of ignoring illegal gambling in places like Dublin city on a grand scale.

I missed the €5,000 lottery provision when we were going through the legislation. That would concern me because some of our clients have certainly come across these technically illicit lotteries on social media platforms where one can pay €20 and perhaps win a car or something like that. This provision would expand and perhaps legitimise that practice even further. I share the Senator’s concerns on that point.