Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. The national lottery has been an enormous success for the country. Anyone who is involved in community activity can see the benefits €4 billion has brought to the country in the last couple of decades. It is important that the Bill and any further changes to the national lottery should ensure that the benefit we have seen from the national lottery continues for many years.

Many of the fears expressed when the national lottery was first proposed have not come to pass. This is largely due to the good management of the national lottery to date.

An open tender competition will be required for the new operators of the national lottery licence. This is bound by EU directives and regulations. Currently, the provision of postal services is one of the few areas that have been granted a derogation from the normal public procurement process. For example, someone setting up a new post office, with the ability to gain revenue from the national lottery, is subject to a different set of rules than those that apply in virtually every other sector. I believe new EU legislation will apply the same procurement rules to applications for a licence to run a post office. Can the Minister of State assist me in securing some information on the current guidelines for the provision of post office licences and the audit trails that go with them? That would be very helpful.

I would support a more robust system of oversight. We have considerable regulation in this country, and I do not say the national lottery requires more regulation, but giving a broader remit to a regulator who would cover other sectors, such as off-course betting and other forms of gambling, would make sense.

Ireland is at a slight competitive disadvantage in the broad area of betting, particularly online betting, compared with countries such as Cyprus and Malta. Legislation is promised in this area. The betting industry has been successful for our country and as a small open economy we should ensure that other countries do not put legislation in place that would set our businesses at a disadvantage. That is not to say we do not need to take extreme care that, as with other addictive products that can cause great harm, we do not put measures in place to increase the danger of gambling.

I disagree with some of the previous speakers on the following point. In the 21st century, people are entitled to purchase products online. We must respect people's entitlement to be responsible for their own behaviour. While I accept that an unfortunate number of post offices are closing, if mature people who can prove they are adults have the capacity and desire to purchase products on line, including the national lottery, they should be facilitated to do so. Reasonable guidelines and protections should be put in place to prevent abuse and ensure that people are not setting themselves up for significant disadvantages and financial difficulty in the future.

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