Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome amendment No. 11 in particular. We will support it. We have raised this issue at various stages. As the Minister said in his contribution, there are wider issues of regulation of betting, gambling industries and gambling control, but they are for another day. I acknowledge the progress that the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, has made but I do not believe the Department has made sufficient progress on this issue. Will the Minister explain exactly when the future gambling control Bill is due before the House? I welcome the amendment because it is a step in the right direction. I hope we can build on it and see further regulation with regard to what is required to counter the use of gambling in private members' clubs and gambling activities to launder money. Why does the measure not include, for instance, bookmakers? This issue has been raised with us and we have raised it before.

I would have thought that was an obvious avenue where the practices this Bill is seeking to quell occurs. We have seen it in some court cases in the past. I also add a health warning to the effect that we could probably have done more and better as regards this issue and we will need to look again at it in the future. The Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, said in the Seanad a few weeks ago that what I am raising is covered by various betting Acts. However, this was raised as a serious issue in the debates on the ever-promised gambling control Bill, which supposedly has been coming in for the past six years but we have not seen it yet. Has gambling been left on the back-burner? I hope that is not the case and that the Minister will be able to indicate exactly when we will get to grips with an issue that has been raised here in the House. That will not take away from the specifics the Minister is trying to achieve in the legislation today, but hopefully it will add to it.

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