Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up where my colleagues finished. There is a lack of clarity around this issue. Earlier in the week I was contacted on this issue by Councillor Valerie Byrne, who is involved in organising bingo in Elphin in County Roscommon. Hers is very typical of the situation throughout the country. I spoke directly to the Minister of State on a few occasions in the past 48 hours about my concerns regarding community organisations throughout the country that run bingo games as a social outlet. I ask the Minister of State to clarify that the distribution cap limiting prize money to a maximum of 50% of the pot does not apply to any bingo game awarding less than €5,000 in prize money on any one particular night. The Minister of State might also clarify the situation regarding jackpots. If a jackpot reached the €3,000 mark referred to by Deputy Eamon Scanlon earlier and there was a big crowd in the hall, could a game end up going over this threshold? This would be an isolated incident. Could a mechanism be introduced to annualise these figures? That cap would not be a problem for those games if prize money was averaged out over 52 weeks, as the average would be much less than €5,000. As Deputy Scanlon has noted, the people I have spoken to are concerned that because a guaranteed sum of money is awarded each week, a figure of 110% could be allocated in some weeks. People are not going to go to a bingo game if they do not know how much prize money they can win.

Last night I gave the Minister of State the example of Northern Ireland, where there is a tiered system regulating bingo. Professional commercial outfits are regulated differently from the community bingo games in Northern Ireland. From reading section 11, which deals with lottery licences, it seems that a similar approach is being taken here. We are not prohibiting the practices of the bingo halls found in Elphin or throughout Roscommon, east Galway and the rest of the country. A lack of clarity about this is part of the problem. I received a briefing note from the Minister of State's Department that did not provide the clarity we seem to be getting from going through the legislation tonight. That is disappointing.

Personally, I was surprised to receive an email from a public relations consultant who was quite concerned about parish bingo games throughout the country.

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