Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Sure, you never know.

I find this a strange Bill. Members have a responsibility to introduce good legislation and we should avoid introducing legislation with little substance. I do not believe this legislation will be workable and, on that basis, I am not very fond of it.

Deputy Clare Daly and I are members of the Committee on Justice and Equality. We have witnessed a few Bills coming through the place that really should not be coming through it. They do not amount to good legislation. One of them is obviously the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill. We had five different sessions on it and I think it will make things worse rather than better. Recently, we also had a Bill on sexual offences which does not really stack up and there is not much rationale behind it. It provided judges with an out in the context that they ignore it if they feel like it, which renders the legislation useless. I do not see the point of introducing legislation like that.

I followed the debate when the Bill was introduced and I noticed that amendments are due to be introduced. It would have been good to see what they are. We are talking about a Bill where the amendments could change it pretty dramatically, or maybe they will not, but we do not know. I would like to see them. Concern was raised about people ending up out of work because of the Bill. I do not want to put anyone out of work either. While I may be reading it wrong, some of the very large organisations that engage in ticket selling are obviously the ones that employ most people.

Are we going to jig this around in such a way as to leave them alone? Will we just hit the smaller entities? We are either going to control the price of tickets or we are not. To be honest, I am not actually in favour of this Bill and in that context, I am not threatening anyone's job. I do not think this Bill is workable, for a number of reasons.

I seriously do not like paying over the odds for a ticket. I really do not like it. I could write a book about buying tickets. I have been to nine World Cups and I usually go from start to finish, and the same with European Championships. I have attended nine European Championships and been at nearly 30 Champion's League finals. Most of the time I have gone without tickets and have bought them outside the stadia but I do not like getting charged over the odds. I remember going to a Champion's League final in 1992. The game, between Sampdoria and Barcelona, was in Wembley Stadium. Barcelona won one-nil. The goal was scored in the 87th minute by Ronald Koeman from a direct free kick. I was shouting for the Italians. It was Sampdoria's first excursion to the final. The team is from Genoa-----

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