Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is the selling, not the renewal, that is the problem.

I am surprised many Deputies and Senators have not seen this.

I could try to get the money to build the children's hospital through a dedicated draw, perhaps on a Wednesday night, over five or six years. If we had done this for road construction we probably would not have paid a ¤10 billion overcharge for work not done. The Minister speaks about an updated model with ¤500 million from the highest bidder but what is updated about this? The Minister speaks about New South Wales where this was done but we are not comparable to New South Wales. We are more comparable to Auckland. The Minister stated it would be remiss of Ireland not to take a similar approach to New South Wales but these are bad comparisons. It is not good governance to copy. Alleviating physical pressure by using the lottery and the opening of online gambling, which is primarily played by the poor, disadvantaged and less well-off is, once again, the greatest transfer of wealth from the working man to the private money swagmen. Gaming consortia are coming to bail out the Government and take away the huge profit.

The facts remain that if somebody gives one ¤500 million and one gives the person a licence for 20 years and online gambling is opened up to pay the interest on the loan, it does not make it right. The only reason the Minister is repealing the National Lottery Act 1986 and changing the legislation is to do just this and open up online gambling. There is no other reason to do it. The Minister needs to stop telling us it is about something else.

It will be a mess and it is wrong because it was an idea of its time, when the cost of finance and yield on Government bonds was between 8% and 10% but now it is at 3%. The time for it has passed. If it is sold for less than ¤500 million it will be disastrous for the people's money. I wish to inform the Senators of an important fact - it is not included in the target to raise ¤3 billion through the sale of State assets set by the EU and the IMF. The troika sales target includes only hard assets such as the ESB and Bord Gáis.

The Minister states he is concerned with all stakeholders. I am a stakeholder. I cannot hold back online gambling and I would be a fool to try, but if it is going to be done let us do it ourselves and ask the Irish people about a dedicated draw to build the children's hospital. They will build it for the Minister without hesitation. The Minister does not have to sell our lottery licence. It is the people's money from the charity of their pockets. I do not believe it is the Minister's to sell. It does not belong to him to sell.