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

I express my gratitude to Deputy Stephen Donnelly, the co-drafter of the Bill. He has been great to work with, brought a lot of common sense and economic capacity to the discussion and, above all, shown how productive, positive politics can work, so I thank the Deputy. It does not all have to be a Punch and Judy show, which is what people experience all too often when watching the proceedings of the Houses on the television or the news. We do not have to be at one another's throats all the time or oppose for opposition's sake. Remarkably, this Bill is set to be the first Private Members' legislation initiated by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael jointly to become law, should it conclude all Stages. When introduced, the Bill was the first legislation co-sponsored by backbench Deputies from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I also set down my praise for Deputy Quinlivan. I know that this is an issue of importance to him and on which he has advocated both in the Chamber and on the airwaves for some time now. This shows there is a recognised problem here. No one has recognised this problem more than the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, so I wish to highlight the vital role the Minister and the team within her Department have played. Since her first week in office, the Minister has been a tireless champion of this legislation. I am grateful for that, as I believe are the 91% of the Irish public who support this legislation.

Both the Bill itself and the problem it seeks to solve are relatively straightforward. As the Minister said, it should never be the case that tickets to concerts or matches go only to those with the deepest pockets. Technology has allowed people to distort the market. We have seen time and again real people, real families and real fans bullied off the pitch by people who buy with the sole intention of making a quick profit despite having done nothing. I ask the Acting Chairman to consider the following. Tickets are strictly finite: we cannot make more of them. We cannot have a second all-Ireland final. Granted, we can have a replay every now and then. As the Minister said, if 90,000 people want to go to a venue that holds 82,000 people, 8,000 people may be left disappointed. Nevertheless, they should at least have a fair crack at being inside the stadium in the first place. It is predictable and well flagged which events will sell out. We always know this in advance. It is possible, sometimes at a price, to buy one's way to the front of the queue, what I call asymmetric access to the market. Sometimes one can get advance access to the market by being a member of a certain mobile phone company or a customer of a certain utility company; sometimes one can simply pay a fee up front to be a member of a fan club of a band or a sports club. This distorts the market. Is this a normal market then? Is it right, is it fair and does it add value to our economy? "No", "no", "no" and "no" are the answers to those questions, and I believe that this is ultimately what was found by the consultation undertaken by the Department to try to separate the truth from the distortion in respect of this market. Yet ticket-touting is still taking place, and in greater numbers than ever. We see the prevalence of ticket-touting and the number of people having to resort to buying tickets from the secondary market growing year on year.

This is the case in many countries, not just Ireland. That is why Deputy Donnelly and I introduced the Bill.

This Bill will effectively ban the above-cost reselling of tickets. That is all; it is straightforward. If someone has a ticket that they need to offload it at face value, they will still be able to do so. If someone finds that, for whatever reason, he or she cannot go to a soccer game between Ireland and Georgia, a rugby game between Ireland and England or a Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift concert, he or she will still be able to his or her ticket at face value, in a fair way in order to ensure that he or she does not lose out. What we are trying to ensure does not happen is the hoarding of tickets. That is happening now. People buy tickets with the sole intention of cornering the market, driving up the price, reselling the tickets and making a profit, having had no input whatsoever.

In drafting this Bill, we drew on the work of other parliaments, such as the Belgian Parliament, as well as the work of Deputies, past and present, within Fine Gael. The initial work of the current Minister for Rural and Community Development, Deputy Ring, Deputy Denis Naughten and the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, some 21 years ago, paved the way for the Bill.

This Bill is straightforward consumer legislation. There is a clear skewing of the market against the consumer and there have been various examples of other such consumer protection legislation. The ethos of minimum wage laws run parallel to that of this Bill, which is to say that the market is not the best way of deciding how things should be governed. There is a need for intervention and regulation. That is the case with mobile phone roaming fees whereby a cap is set on the amount that people can be charged when they go abroad. That is consumer protection legislation. In minimum wage laws, we say there has to be a basement level above which people must be paid. We cannot simply let companies set the level at which people are paid. As a Government, a Parliament and a society, we set a minimum wage law. Certain interventions made by Government are positive for consumers, society and the population.

I am proud to be proposing a Bill which every consumer association has spoken in favour of and which is based on a principle that every party in the Dáil has spoken in favour of at one point or another. The GAA is in favour of this. The IRFU representatives I met were in favour of this. The FAI is in favour of this. As the Minister pointed out, our hosting of Euro 2020 games will require legislation such as this. This is not simply a trivial whim, this is something we must do, in one form or another. I am glad that the Minister is taking action.

Sometimes people ask why we cannot do this kind of thing in respect of other sectors. Theoretically, one could, but, in the case of, say, housing, the best solution is more supply, as well as interventions and subsidies, to make housing affordable and accessible for people. The market this Bill addresses is very different. It is an easily identifiable problem that is easily solved. It has been solved in other countries and we can do it here.

There has been a lot of distortion, lobbying and inaccuracy about the constitutionality of this Bill. Certain companies have spent tens of thousands of euro fighting and opposing it in the media and through lobbying on Merrion Street and Kildare Street. Some have not correctly declared their engagement in lobbying. They have set out to muddy the waters and delay the legislation. We have been delayed for the past two years. If one includes the work of Alan Shatter and Deputy Denis Naughten, we have been delayed for the past 21 years enacting legislation on this. That delay, thanks to the action of the Minister, is coming to an end.

One of the main issues of distortion featured in an article in a prominent daily newspaper on Saturday about the issue of constitutionality and property rights etc. This is rubbish. The terms and conditions of one of the most prominent ticketing companies reads, "Any ticket you purchase from us remains the property of the relevant event partner and is a personal, revocable licence which may be withdrawn and admission refused at any time." It is not property. The consumer does not own the ticket at any point. It is a token by which the consumer gains access to an event. It is not property so it does not interfere with constitutional property rights whatsoever and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise, it muddies the waters and it tries to make people believe this Bill is something it is not. It is simple consumer protection legislation. It is an attempt to level the playing field so that regular fans, regular people, be they sports fans or music fans, have the same access to tickets as anybody else. He or she who shows up first gets first dibs on a ticket. It is not the case that whoever has the deepest pockets controls the market anymore.

I am a sports fan. Some Deputies are music fans. I gather from Deputy Donnelly's press release yesterday that he is an Ariana Grande fan. We were all surprised to hear that, but, to paraphrase E.M. Forster, democracy loves variety.

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