Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to make a few comments on what is happening with gambling. I am not somebody who gambles. I might play cards, but I do not back horses. I recently had to go into a bookmaker's office to see somebody and could not believe what I was looking at. There were approximately 20 televisions on all the time. There was racing being shown from all over the world of dogs and horses, as well as football matches. I know that there are people who like to take a punt, go for "Lucky 15s" and so on. I hear about these things and sometimes they are lucky and sometimes not. There are certainly people gambling today who cannot afford to gamble, as we all realise. There should be help available to support them. I am aware of cases where families have been wiped out because of a member of the family gambling, especially online. I have seen families destroyed and businesses people had worked extremely hard to build up wiped out practically overnight because it was too late when the other spouse heard about it. The damage was done. It had gone too far. The banks moved in and the business was taken. I have noticed that happening.

One sees advertisements advising people to stop gambling when the fun stops. That is the greatest joke because that is not happening and will not happen. There should definitely be some responsibility placed on the industry. One hears of cases where an individual has gambled hundreds of thousands and is then in court. We see such people on television and hear them on radio, but we do not hear about the other cases. People have gambled hundreds of thousands and nobody shouted "Stop". I am sure the industry must be aware that when a particular person has a tendency to gamble €1,000 a week, nobody can afford it. I do not care what salary a person is on since nobody can afford it, but there does not seem to be any system in place to spot this and do something to try to stop it, or at least to identify and report a particular bookmaker's office where a person is spending that amount money to deal with and resolve the issue before it is too late. That is not happening. As far as I can see, there is no regulation in place or nobody within the industry cares how many families are destroyed, businesses are lost or about the hardship caused for many families.

I welcome whatever can be done. I understand online gambling transactions will be taxed because I do not think there is any tax derived from the industry. Perhaps there might be greater regulation. It is important that responsibility be put on the industry. While I know that people can go into a different bookmaker's office even if there was a weekly limit of a certain amount, the industry is smart enough, if there is a trend in a specific area, to know that there is a problem which should be identified and a person helped.

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