Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also appeal to the Minister of State not to proceed with this because it will have major implications for the organisations referred to by others. Gambling is a serious problem and is something that needs to be addressed. I absolutely agree with that, 100%. There is no argument whatsoever in relation to that. I want to give the Minister of State a couple of examples of organisations that will be affected. St. Francis Hospice in Dublin 15 holds a car draw every year from which it raises a substantial amount of money. Will that be affected? It seems that it will be. Very recently Castleknock GAA club had a huge fundraiser. There was €200,000 or €250,000 in prize money and tickets were €100. The only way that the club could sell those tickets was through Facebook. I would say there is nobody on Facebook who did not see the advertisements. The club managed to pull in GAA stars, RTÉ stars and people from all over Ireland and from all walks of life to do a 20-second or 30-second advertisement for Castleknock GAA club. It was done for one simple reason: to benefit the kids in the area and give them better sports facilities. This is way too serious for any chances to be taken with it. As I said, we definitely need gambling legislation and we need to seriously crack down on gambling addiction in this State but this is too serious to proceed. The implications of this Bill will be massive for ordinary community groups, sports clubs and so on that will be really limited in how they can raise funds.

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