James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the progression of this legislation through to Second Stage. It is great to see it coming along before the end of this term. I take a moment to commend the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, for his determination and diligence in stewarding this Bill to the stage of publication and Second Stage. I know he has made it his priority since he took up office and I salute him on that. As Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, I was very happy to work with him on it. We have engaged and published a report with a number of recommendations which I will speak on in a moment. It is a good example of the legislative process working well. We have gone full cycle, done due diligence and the Bill has been improved as a result.

With regard to the Bill and the whole are of gambling, several speakers have mentioned the issue of online gambling and phone gambling. I think it was the Minister of State who said we all have a casino in our pocket now should we wish to check in to it. It is yet another example of technology outstripping legislation and how it has vastly outstripped legislative change and policy making. This is brought to life by the fact that even though legislation was enacted in 2019, which is only three years ago, even that legislation is massively out of date. If one looks at the definition of online lotteries, gaming and activity, it is very unclear and uncertain as to what exactly are the legislative provisions. That remains the case for legislation only passed three years ago.

It is very important we dot and progress legislation and bring it up to date. Many of the operators who engage in the Irish jurisdiction are headquartered or operate from jurisdictions abroad. I may be doing them a disservice but I think some of the smaller EU states often play host to gambling companies because they are licensed and legislated to provide the services from there. That means they are effectively passporting into Ireland or providing services here while being, to some extent, outside the reach of our own domestic laws which, of course, is never a great idea. This is overdue and, indeed, very welcome.

The spectrum of gambling activities, as has been mentioned by a few speakers already, is very broad and includes GAA clubs. I heard Deputy Healy-Rae talk about his local GAA club. I have often sat at a draw in Sallins or Clane GAA club or other GAA clubs and watched them pick balls from a tombola. I have never actually won the draw but I have often tried. I know that it goes from small local community organisations right through to the other end of the spectrum of multimillion and probably billion euro enterprises that operate at significant scale across many jurisdictions. It is about trying to get a one-size-fits-all approach to those. Trying to get a staggered approach that captures all of them is very challenging and difficult.

I have to agree with other speakers who made the distinction between those large offline and online providers and the ordinary rural or urban local bookmaker. I do not necessarily agree with a comment made by one of the speakers that one never sees a poor bookmaker. They are not all minted or made of money. I know some of them lay the bets off to other exchanges but they can go bust very quickly as well, especially the smaller individuals. It can be a difficult and quite stressful life. I am talking about the small, family-run businesses that at one time, certainly, were on the street of every local village and town. I know many enjoy a game of chance, whether it is a bet on a horse race or a sporting event.

There are many people, particularly older gentlemen, who will bet 50 cent or €1 at a time and have great enjoyment from an afternoon at the bookmaker in which they spend no more than €3. The engagement, chat and chance to socialise is as much part of the experience as the bet itself. I have seen that happen. It is important that be recognised as a social or enjoyable activity. It can also go wrong. I have, sadly, seen situations where people who were normal, decent, hardworking, upstanding individuals had a secret vice that was unknown to others at the time and became apparent. Some of those cases have ended in tragedy, including careers being derailed, families being upended, houses being repossessed and people ending up in custody. There are draconian consequences but sometimes they only emerge at the far end of an engagement, when this might have been going on in the background, unknown to anyone observing the person.

I will briefly revisit the committee engagement. I mentioned how technology has far outstripped the pace of legislative change relating to social media, technology and data industries. One figure that stood out was when a company revealed that it has up to 200 different data points on every individual who uses its services. When people place a bet online, the company has a sophisticated matrix that can be used to pinpoint information from the obvious matters such as what day a person is paid on to less obvious ones such as people's interests, cultural likes and what movies they like to watch. It is a variety of data that the company can use to target advertisements at people on the day they are paid, in a format they might like, in a manner, such as through comedy, which the company knows will work best to attract the attention of that individual and entice that person to place a bet.

A scandal such as the one with Cambridge Analytica is waiting to happen. We have seen this happen in politics and we are on the cusp of it happening with gambling. Perhaps it is already happening daily online on everybody's phone and we are oblivious to it. I welcome the provisions. There are significant moves to curb online and social media advertising in the Bill. I understand that somebody has to proactively select to follow a particular betting company to receive its promotion, otherwise they will not appear in that person's feed. That is progressive and welcome.

I mentioned what the Minister of State has done. I know he has taken on board many points made at the committee, especially watershed advertising. I thank him for that. It is an example of the process being done well.

On a miscellaneous note, bingo has been raised with me as something that is perhaps not covered by the Bill. There may be a lacuna. Pre-Covid, many constituents boarded buses and went to bingo all around the country. I am not sure where that stands. Is there a grey area in this Bill? I am not sure. Perhaps the Minister of State could respond about that at the end of the debate. I thank the Minister of State for his diligence and determination in driving this Bill forward. I was glad to have the opportunity to engage through the committee process. It is good legislation and I commend it to the House.

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