Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister of State to give more consideration to what he is talking about. He has managed to confuse everybody. He is going to say party lotteries do not fall into this. That is probably what his officials are saying to him at the moment. Why not? Are we not entitled to have information about that kind of lottery? For some reason, the people in the bingo hall seem to deserve a deeper and higher level of regulation. I read in a newspaper that a Fine Gael draw raised hundreds of thousands of euro. Such sums of money are very significant. The Fianna Fáil draw could raise similar amounts of money.

We need a fair and level playing pitch. There are people in working class communities in Dublin, Cork and throughout the country who, as we have heard, play an occasional game of bingo. This provision would be similar to using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut. We need to hear chapter and verse on how it will affect the people who run bingo events and are happy to donate to charity. If, as hinted by the Minister of State, there are firms about which the Government has concerns he should tell us of the suspected wrongdoing or misappropriation of funding by these organisations. I would like him to elaborate on his commentary in that regard. I do not know how many bingo halls the Minister of State has visited but I am sure he has been in at least one with his mother or granny at some stage. Why is he so worried about some of the operators? Is it that they are not reliable, trustworthy or honest? The people we are talking about who are operating in community centres around the country are doing their best for the local communities and they are happy to organise events and to have the funding raised contribute back to the communities.

As I said earlier, currently all around Ireland community centres are desperately fundraising for the necessary fire inspections that they have to undergo under the new regulations being introduced by the Minister of State's colleague, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, and rightly so. However, the money for those inspections has to be raised by voluntary organisations. We are not getting reasonable, detailed answers that we can pass on to explain the Minister of State's vision in terms of the new rules. The Minister of State might clarify in his response if he intends to bring in detailed regulations in regard to what is contained in this legislation and, if so, will he commit to putting those regulations before the House so that they can be debated as well?

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