Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I believe the figures are ill-advised. Depending on how the machines are structured, we will have people doing what happens on these types of machines in other jurisdictions. They will not play for one €5 stake and one €500 prize. They could be playing for ten €5 stakes and ten €500 prizes. This is an incredible incentive to engage in mad gambling with a view of winning for a problem gambler. Gamblers do not necessarily have the outlook the Minister of State has on gambling. A person might well envisage if he or she were to spend an hour or two on one of these machines not only would he or she win a €500 prize but he or she could win ten €500 prizes. When people are caught up in mad gambling, that is the way they think. That is what is happening with online gambling. I presume these figures are probably influenced by the fact that people can gamble away vast sums online.

The Minister of State may have done this but if he has not, he should talk to some of the young people on GAA teams and other sports people who find themselves heavily addicted to gambling and to the notion of large prizes, which he is inserting here. What he has put forward here is utterly and completely wrong and destructive.

When I was a Minister, I instituted the first study on gambling. I have also had an opportunity to meet people in a number of organisations throughout the country who deal with gambling addictions and, for families, problem gambling is probably the worst addiction of all. People will gamble away the house, farm, business and family savings. We have no mechanisms to deal with problem gambling other than a small number of specialist facilities that will take people usually on the basis of them having private health insurance.

I urge the Minister of State to reconsider this proposal. The Labour Party does not accept it. The proposal could cause great harm to people with problem gambling issues and their families who often find their family home, everything they posses, their farm or business has gone because of the gambler. Many young people in different sporting organisations have come out and explained what has happened regarding their problem gambling. If the Minister of State were to speak to any of them, they would give him a different take on this proposal.

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