Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will use this opportunity to give a full contribution rather than coming in with bits and pieces and extending the debate unnecessarily. The debate on Report Stage of this legislation has such interest for two reasons. First, there is a very effective lobby group out there. Second, the Minister of State did not get clarity out to the public quickly enough in response. I was confused up to yesterday but I got clarification having spoken to Deputy O'Callaghan and other Deputies. I was fully happy going home last night and I put a tweet out this morning supporting the legislation. I also met a group of the lobby people in the coffee dock here today. I do not know if they will list meeting with me as part of their lobbying activities - I have no idea on that one. When I left that meeting only a few hours ago, I was further confused again. I went back to Deputy O'Callaghan and his staff who clarified the whole issue.

There has been mass confusion over several days. I was in my local town of Mountrath, in Laois, at the weekend where I was asked what was I doing "up there stopping the bingo". There is a lesson here for the Minister of State's Department. Some of the correspondence that went out confused permits, licences and lottery operators.

The Bill, however, does not apply to any of the people who believed they were affected. The local community group, be it a hall committee, the Irish Countrywomen's Association, a parish council or a soccer or GAA club, is not affected, but it believed it was.

This Bill has a benefit. Under the old legislation, some of these groups were technically only allowed to run two lotteries per year. That restriction will be gone under the Bill and groups will be able to run bingo weekly or monthly if they ask a chief superintendent and place limits on their prize funds. That is an improvement.

I call the bingo in my community centre on the second Sunday of every month. If anyone wants to come to Castletown in County Laois on Sunday, he or she might win €3,000. That is my plug. We are Members of the House because we know, understand and are part of our communities. That is why we can speak on matters.

I see great value in one of the Bill's sections. An operator could sell 1,500 tickets for less than €5 each and pay out less than €1,000. Someone could raise €7,500 and clear €6,500. I think of the small raffles that parents councils are running in primary and secondary schools. They are selling one ticket for €2 or three tickets for €5. They will be able to pay out up to €1,000 and happily operate without having to ask the Garda for a permit because they will be below the limit requiring one. It is good that this has been clarified.

One grouping might need a bit of clarification, though. I know all of the bingo games in the Laois area. They advertise set prizes. They pay out €1,000, €2,000 or €3,000 and people know how much single lines, double lines and full houses are worth as the games go on. Even under the current arrangements, that information can be stuck up on a door. However, there is another arrangement whereby some games split the pot or bucket. Depending on what they collect in a raffle during the course of a week, they might agree to pay out 50% of it. Sometimes, the amounts cannot be determined, but once the prize money is under €1,000, the small games will have nothing to worry about. I wanted to make that point, as I am familiar with games that run €2 tickets every week and there are 20 promoters in a parish. It is small money. They will not have to ring their local gardaí once the prize fund is under €1,000 and the game is being run for charitable or philanthropic purposes. That means "for the good of the community" in simple English. People worry about big words, so we have to tell them what they mean in simple English.

The provision relating to the maximum prize of €5,000 covers most of the lotteries that I know. I am not expressing any interest in major commercial lotteries. The Revenue Commissioners and the lotteries' accountants should be ensuring that every penny they collect is properly recorded in their books and audited and that they pay their proper corporation taxes like everyone else. Making sure that a commercial operator is paying its tax is not the Minister of State's function, but other State authorities should be dealing with them and we should not allow their issues to be conflated with those of others. They are being conflated, however. The people whom I met today conflated some of the issues, for example, licenceholders with permitholders.

It is important that the Minister of State understand one of the queries raised with me today concerning something that is in the legislation. People told me that the holder of the permit could only retain 5% of the proceeds. I went away a few hours ago wondering what it was about. I will explain what it means. If I am a trustee of the local hall and I get a permit in my name on behalf of the community hall, I might need to incur some legal expenses. I would be allowed a maximum of 5% of the proceeds. Although no trustee of any hall keeps a penny, there is provision allowing for a trustee's legal costs to be covered. We were told only a few hours ago that the pemitholder could only hold 5% of the gross proceeds. I am not sure whether they did not know what they were talking about or were deliberately trying to mislead the Oireachtas. It could have been one or the other.

If the Leas-Cheann Comhairle indulges me, I am almost finished. Once a lottery exceeds €5,000, it must go to the District Court. That should not be an issue. This is where the percentages clock in with regard to prizes, operating costs and the amount that goes to charitable of philanthropic purposes. There is a cap of €30,000. Some of the large lotteries roll over. Some parishes have hit big lotteries, though. In practice, they might have had voluntary ceilings. That will now be in legislation. A ceiling stops a roll-over. If a lottery keeps rolling over from €28,000 to €29,000 to €30,000, it will stop at €30,000. A lottery cannot exceed that amount. Some lotteries might start building up a second jackpot to be won in a later week. When the big jackpot is won, the second one coming behind it will already be halfway up to the cap. I see the Minister of State's officials looking at him wondering whether an amendment is necessary to cover a second jackpot that is creeping up at the same time, but we will move on and take the legislation as it is before us.

A great deal of confusion was caused during the week by a certain sector that came to lobby, but the Department could have helped to assuage much of that. We are there now.

See this speech in context