Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 4:

In page 41, between lines 8 and 9, to insert the following:

“38. Section 32 of the Principal Act is repealed.”.

We discussed the matter on Committee Stage and I tabled a number of parliamentary questions on it. The background to the situation is that someone was explaining to me the outdated legislation that surrounds gambling. The person furnished my office with a picture of An Taoiseach in a Paddy Power's shop in Mayo. He was holding a sign showing the odds for the all-Ireland final between Donegal and Mayo. The individual who sent me the picture asked whether I knew that under section 32 of the 1931 Betting Act that the Taoiseach was involved in illegal activity. Perhaps the Taoiseach was not implicated but bookies certainly were because it is illegal in this jurisdiction to advertise the odds of any football match in the State. It is also illegal for a publication produced for sale or distribution outside a betting shop to advertise the odds for football matches in the State. That took me by surprise. The incident coincided with the debate on Paddy Power offering odds on whether Oscar Pistorius would be found guilty of the murder of a South African citizen. The situation highlights how our laws have been defined. In 1931 we thought it was a terrible thing for a newspaper or advertisement to hang outside a shop referring to the bookmaker's odds for a local football derby, yet we believe that the odds of somebody charged with murder being sentenced to life imprisonment should be allowed to be advertised in national newspapers and other places.

The amendment proposes the deletion of section 32, which prohibits the advertisement of betting on football games. I listened to what the Minister of State said about the gambling control Bill. We must remember that the gambling control Bill was supposed to be introduced in tandem with the Betting (Amendment) Bill, which is nearly three years in the making. We now know that the betting control Bill will be published next year but political circumstances may dictate that something else will overtake it. Issues arose in the Department of Justice and Equality relating to the Garda Commissioner, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, whistleblowers and penalty points which stalled legislation. Let us delete section 32 or present an argument for why the Minister thinks the Garda should be called if the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, or any other Taoiseach or bookmaker, decides to advertise the odds of Manchester United versus Chelsea or Donegal versus Dublin in the all-Ireland final, or on any other football match taking place in the State.

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