Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 23:

In page 13, between lines 5 and 6, to insert the following:“(2) The amount of the annual levy under this section shall be decided by the Minister.”.

This is the levy that will be used to meet the expenses properly incurred by the regulator in the discharge of his or her functions. I note the licence shall provide for the payment by the operator of an annual levy to the regulator. As the Minister indicated earlier, the regulator's office will be funded through the lottery and will not be a cost on the taxpayer. It will be a cost on the successful applicant, which will be charged an annual levy that will include the cost of meeting the functions of the regulator's expenses, including the salaries of the regulator, staff members and other employees of the regulator. When this issue was debated on Committee Stage, I stated this levy should be decided on by the Minister. Incidentally, as the regulator will not be in place when the first licence is given out, Members are having a discussion on something that might happen in 20 years' time. In any event, even if the Minister has a change of heart and postpones the issuing of this licence until the new regulator is in place, there is something wrong in principle that the regulator effectively can request a blank cheque from the successful operator. It is wrong that the regulator could state X hundred thousand or X million euro were required to run his or her office and procedures or could state that he or she needed to be able to travel the world to ascertain how all the other operators operate and do their business. In such a scenario, the regulator could state he or she should have a levy of €5 billion per annum to run the office, even if the staff pay and conditions were in line with Government guidelines, because of the other associated costs. It is not right that a regulator should be able to set his or her own levy to run the cost of the regulator's own operation because it puts the operator in an invidious position. Moreover, no mechanism for negotiation is provided in respect of what constitutes a reasonable fee. The right thing to do, in the public interest, is for the Minister to decide on the amount of the levy and to tell the regulator what is the budget from which he or she must employ the staff and meet the expenses of the regulator's office. This is a reasonable suggestion.

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