Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to give credit to the Minister of State and the work he has done here. He gave a commitment that this legislation would be brought before the House and he has been true to his word. Often in politics, people in his position do not get any praise whatsoever so I will say that much. It can be difficult to wade through all the different responsibilities, find the time to engage with all the stakeholders, produce a piece of legislation and bring it before the Oireachtas. I give credit to the Minister of State for what he has done. With the safe passage of this Bill and with the amendments we hope to bring forward, we will hopefully repair and enhance lives. The Minister of State has been articulating this for quite some time and it is quite clear that in the Bill we are recognising, after many years, the need for strict regulation in this sphere. I congratulate the Minister of State on that.

I also pay tribute to my own colleagues. Senator Mark Wall has spoken about gambling possibly more than any other issue since he came into the Oireachtas. He has been speaking on it regularly, he has published his own legislation around it and he has been engaging with stakeholders. I pay tribute to him and to Deputy Howlin, who took part in the pre-legislative scrutiny element of this Bill.

It is remarkable, when observing the history of this area of legislation, just how powerful is the gambling lobby. There used to be a levy of 20% on bets placed in Ireland. I do not know how many other industries have successfully lobbied their way from a levy of 20% down to what was 1% and is now 2%.

It is also remarkable that the wider lobby of interest groups has managed to ensure the levy on gambling goes exclusively to a fund which is disproportionately spent on prize money people bet to get their hands on. It is bizarre on one level that the levy funds an industry that encourages people to bet. The levy has not heretofore benefited anyone with a gambling addiction. It has not benefited any entity that might provide a different route for young people to stay away from gambling. It does not do anything in the health or education spheres. Every cent of the levy on gambling goes to the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund. Some 80% of that is for the horse racing industry, of which the vast bulk goes to prize money. Approximately €45 million of tax-free prize money was presented by the taxpayer to the horse racing industry last year on the backs of bets placed on everything.

When I say this to people in meetings, they are always perplexed by it. They ask how it happened. It is not only horse racing or greyhound racing bets that accumulate these moneys. Any bet on anything does. All the levies from bets on politics, football or the weather go straight into the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund. Therefore I suggest to the Minister of State that we should perhaps go back and consider raising the levy to where it was previously. While 20% sounds like a lot, 2% is certainly not enough and what we would accrue from an increased levy should benefit pursuits other than those that have such a culture of betting around them. You cannot hear of a horse racing in a race without hearing the price of a bet on that horse. You cannot hear about a greyhound meet without betting being referenced. It is almost unique in the sporting sphere in that when we hear about these sporting occasions, betting on them is front and centre of the commentary. It is a little perplexing how the gambling levy and that industry are completely intertwined.

As has been said, it is hard to watch any kind of sporting event in the current context without being bombarded with gambling advertising. It is true of television, radio and online. There was a time, when I was younger, when there was some kind of social control on betting. Bets had to be placed in a bookie's office which were only open between certain hours. There was a realisation that people had to physically go to the bookie's office so they had to regulate themselves as to how often they were there, who saw them there, the sense people had of them, how they carried themselves and if they were seen to be in the bookie's office too often. People's families would know if they were in the bookie's office a lot. They had a sense of how a person was spending money or engaging in gambling so they could keep an eye on it.

I sound like a very old person making these comments, but the advent of the Internet changed all that. It could now be done online. People no longer had to go to the bookie's office so that social control was more limited. With the advent of the smartphone in the past 15 years or so, that has completely gone out the window. People do not have to worry about social control involved in the physical trip to the bookie's office. No one has to know in any way how, when or how much a person is betting, unless someone has a sense of what is in that person's bank account. People can bet at any hour of the day or night. They can find a way of doing it even if they are children. We are told every hour of the day and night that we should do it. If people have an interest in sport, they are encouraged to bet by the advertisements on the front of the shirts and by entities that sponsor coverage on different broadcasters. It is a swamp that people almost need incredible discipline not to engage in, if they have a phone and are interested in sport in particular.

A huge amount of what is in this Bill is welcome, including the regulatory authority and the banning of gambling advertising between certain hours. We will be putting down amendments. Second Stage speeches are a general reflection of the state of play. On the gambling advertising restrictions, we must simply go further. I know the Minister of State has listened to various interest groups and is trying to strike a balance. That is fair enough, but to suggest that at 9 o'clock the influence of gambling advertising will be lessened because of who is watching television, listening to the radio or in the online sphere is not realistic. As has been said, if people who have a gambling habit in their life use their phone during their trip home from the pub, they will probably be more influenced by gambling advertising at that hour of the night than they might be at 1 o'clock in the day. We must have the same view of gambling advertising as we once had of cigarette and alcohol advertising. We have to kill it dead. We must move away from the cultural acceptance of a level of gambling noise. Members will be aware of the clever advertising that is done by various bookmakers and gambling companies. It is clever and can be engaging. It can be witty, funny or deliberately offensive, but as the Oireachtas, we must stand up more strongly and say this equates to alcohol and cigarettes because the damage being done is absolutely incalculable. If this is in a person's life, it takes over everything.

The Labour Party facilitated a conversation with Oisín McConville, who said that what young people are now going through which is different from what he went through. The secrecy that surrounds it and the methodologies used are dangerous. I do not accept the bona fides of any of these multi-billion euro companies because their job is to screw people out of their money. As Deputy Daly quite rightly stated about BeGambleAware, it is a pathetic nod to something the companies do not really want to happen at all. As a collective political body, we must put the person at the front and centre of what we are trying to do and put protections in place for the person, for the person's family and for children who will be influenced by this. The world is very different from what it was like when I was a child, when the bookie's office was a place we might go once a year to place a bet on the Grand National. Now it is all around us, on our phones every hour of day and night. It is destroying families and it will only get worse. I get the sense from this area that we are at the beginning of an epidemic, if we are not already there. It is so silent.

We will be putting down amendments to strengthen the Bill. The Minister of State is to be congratulated. He flagged this for a long time. He has brought it before the Oireachtas and, in fairness, he has delivered. That is in his favour and needs to be said on the record. It is strong legislation. We feel it could be stronger. The levy on gambling needs to be increased and should fund more than the Horse and Greyhound Racing Fund because the ring-fenced nature of that funding deserves massive scrutiny and overhaul. Other sporting entities and pursuits need to be considered. When it comes to the advertising piece, I know the Minister of State has tried to strike a balance, but we need an absolute ban on gambling advertising and sponsorship. They should be treated as dangerous, in the same way as cigarette advertising. If we had that mentality, we might achieve something. I do not agree with this idea that we can open the gates at 9 p.m. because we know, with the money these people have, they will flood our television screens and our radio waves from 9 p.m. onwards. No advertisement other than gambling advertisements will be heard because that is the nature of what they do.

With those thoughts myself, Senator Mark Wall and other members of the Labour Party are determined to work with the Minister of State to make this more robust. We certainly have a good start because of the Minister of State's work. We will continue to work with him.

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