Frank Feighan (Fine Gael)

Hopefully the horses will get faster. I am a lottery agent and by law, anybody under 18 is not allowed to buy a lottery ticket or scratch card. As an owner of an outlet that is a lottery agent, I must enforce this law rigorously. I am sure the full rigours of the law will come down on any lottery agent seen to break the law. Thankfully, we have had no trouble. There were times in the beginning, where parents were in the pub and sent their children in with €5 to ask for lottery tickets or scratch cards, and we had to tell them we could not accept their money. The children would then return to their parents who were initially quite upset. We had to state that we were obliged to enforce the law and could not accept the money unless the parents came in themselves. Senator Fitzgerald has a point in this regard, but it would only apply for the first day or two. Thereafter, the parents learned they could not send their children in for cigarettes or lottery tickets because it is against the law.

Gambling starts for young people between the ages of eight and 12. There is much hypocrisy where people state that parents do not mind. I see many parents at the greyhound track, the racecourse, the football matches or coming in to buy lottery tickets who I would not like to have supervising my child or indeed their own. We must have laws that we stick by. Over the years we saw everyone say that drink-driving was doing no harm. Then, everyone stopped, or the legislation became more effective because people feared losing their licence or insurance. They never thought they might kill themselves, or worse, kill or maim innocent pedestrians. We certainly need laws and legislation to ensure that gambling is not prevalent among young people.

The State and Government are there to protect young people. There is currently an anomaly where they are able to protect them from going into bookmakers or gambling in newsagents. They should also be protected from on-course betting and the tote. The solution is to have children ask their parents to put €1 or €2 on a horse. There is great fun to be had, but legislation must be introduced to protect young, vulnerable and innocent children.

I am not a killjoy. I gamble myself at the racecourse and thankfully it has not affected me — well perhaps it has — but we need protection. In the UK, the age limit is 18 while in the US it is 21 which is somewhat restrictive. We should follow the example of our near neighbours in trying to raise the age to 18 years. Young people are vulnerable and impressionable. Sometimes, we all think we can gamble our way out of our debts, thinking that with one more win we will be able to buy this or that. We have a duty to protect people under 18. I acknowledge the Minister's point that there are 17,000 full-time jobs and 18,000 part-time jobs in the racing industry and in Bord na gCon, but the act of banning young people from putting €1 or €2 over the counter will not affect them.

We are prepared to introduce legislation, which I welcome, that does not allow children into pubs on the grounds that it protects children. We cannot then refuse to introduce similar legislation to protect children in other areas. This Government has introduced draconian legislation which has probably worked out very well and it is now refusing to introduce legislation that will prevent young and impressionable people from gambling on race courses. This is an hypocritical stance and I congratulate Senator Cummins on raising this anomaly in the gambling process. I hope the Government will support this motion because children need to be protected; people can become addicted to gambling, as shown by the existence of Gamblers Anonymous.

Gambling can be great fun and I have seen the bond between parents and children when they go to the racecourse or greyhound stadium and their horse or dog may win. Young people could still place bets through their peers or parents. There should be some restrictions in the area of gambling, because we are leaving ourselves open to charges of hypocrisy if we do nothing.