Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When it comes to professionalised ticket touting in this country, it is very clear that there is a serious problem. Deputy Donnelly and I have drafted legislation in this direction but here we will outline the problem and the solution. There are three simple rules which could be imposed on Ticketmaster or other primary sellers of tickets which would prevent industrialised, professionalised ticket touting: limit the number of tickets an individual can buy, use the original debit or credit card on entry to a venue, and match the name on the ticket with a photo ID. This was not done for the recent U2 concert and is generally not done.

It appears that Ticketmaster, which owns the leading secondary selling website, Seatwave, and other primary sellers, is very comfortable with as many tickets as possible going on to Seatwave and does not restrict the primary sales of tickets in a reasonable way. The commission for each secondary sale is in the region of between 15% and 20%. The UK commissioned a substantial and comprehensive report into this as recently as last year and Belgium introduced legislation on this matter which was very effective.

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