Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While I find the legislation disappointing, I was at great pains to explain that I was as fond of overpaying for tickets as anyone else. In fact, I absolutely hate paying above the odds. I remember being outside the old Lansdowne Road stadium in the early 1980s when tickets were being sold at an awful price and I could not afford to buy them. I got a fellow to give me a leg up onto the wall and then the roof. When I jumped down, I was seen by a garda who chased me as fast as he could. I ran up the ramp of the south terrace and the place was jammed. I put my head down to knee level and went right down into the terrace as fast as I could. Of course, the garda never caught me.

I remember another day on which I could not get a ticket and decided to try my luck. I went through the turnstile as if I had a ticket and gave the man in it a tenner. He let me in as it was a tenner for him and he did not mind one bit. One could probably have called it bribery.

I remember attending the World Cup final in 1982 when Italy played Germany and won 3-1. Rossi, Tardelli and Altobelli were the three scorers and it was a powerful win. I did not have a ticket, but on the Saturday evening it was announced that tickets for the game, to be played on the Sunday afternoon, would go on sale at the stadium at 8 a.m. on the Sunday. When I went there at approximately 7.45 a.m., without exaggeration, the queue was 2 miles long. I did a count and there were about 6,000 people queueing for the 1,500 tickets available. I went up to an Italian fellow who was fourth in the queue and asked if he knew how many tickets he would be allowed to buy. He could speak a little English and said he did not know. I told him that he would be allowed to buy four and asked how many he needed. He only needed two. I suggested he buy four and told him that I would give him 50% above the price of the other two. Lo and behold, I got the two tickets I needed, unlike most of the people who had been queueing since the middle of the night. One could have said it was also bribery, but I would resort to using any trick to get a ticket for a football match.

To return to the subject of the Bill, the primary responsibility of any Government is to take the best care possible of those most in need of help. I would say the same about legislators. We should be putting all of our energy into dealing with issues such as the price of housing and dealing with homelessness. Worrying about who can charge extra for a ticket should be down the list of our concerns. This legislation is not workable and will only drive touting underground. Making it illegal will not work. As I said, it is illegal to sell drugs in Ireland, but there would be less drug use if they were legal. Driving something underground does not work. This is poor legislation. As legislators, we have a responsibility to make better use of our time.

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