Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

We will see. As I said, I do not gamble but we must all reapply for our jobs so, to that extent, it is a gamble.

The net point is that we need a comprehensive review of the Gaming and Lotteries Act, given the minor amendments to a variety of Acts that are contained in the Bill. It is a modest proposal. We need to do some fundamental thinking in this regard. Rather than rush to legislation, we should have a dialogue within the Houses on these matters. I say this to engage the opinions of outside consultants, bodies and others.

We have established Oireachtas committees. While they are busy and will not thank me for suggesting that we increase the agenda of work in the coming months, they constitute a forum where fundamental issues of importance can be debated and ideas can be balanced in a way that is different from simply presenting cooked legislative proposals about which people have already made up their minds. I suggest the committees as a vehicle that might be used to examine important but dated legislation with regard to how gaming and lotteries are regulated in this jurisdiction.

A germane point was made by Deputy Jim O'Keeffe when he referred, in McDowell-esque fashion, to the United States Congress grafting a prohibition on on-line gambling on to a transport Bill or a ports Bill. I am not sure that even the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform would get away with that. It would run foul of the longest of Long Titles in terms of our proposals.

The effects in this area are somewhat invisible in that we do not have a high street shop for on-line gambling. A major chunk of gambling is done on-line and it is easy for those with an addiction to access the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Moreover, although I am not an expert in this regard, the credit facilities available on some of these schemes could pose real social threats, which merit examination, particularly if the competition is set to increase here on foot of the tightening or extinction of the regime in the United States, which was a very big market.

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