David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and I congratulate Senator O'Donnell on her courage and innovation in tabling the motion. It is timely. I opposed the lottery Bill. I opposed the selling of our assets. I recognise that there has been a consistent dumbing down of this society. Just the other weekend I watched television and for one hour, every single station that was accessible in my home, carried a gaming show of one kind or another. That is the type of society in which we live. I deplore it but it is the reality. If the State can do good with this measure then so be it as far as I am concerned. I am very concerned that we are selling off the asset. I read a speech by Deputy Kenny from the other House and he made a distinction between selling the lottery and selling the licence. In my opinion that was a specious, Jesuitical argument. Selling the licence is effectively selling the lottery. If it is not then it is renting the lottery. One could adapt James Joyce and say that they there were people around the place who would not only sell their country for three halfpence but they would get down on their knees and thank the Almighty Christ they had a country to sell. We can just substitute "sell" with the word "rent". There are people who would be delighted to say that they had rented the country. In fact if one continues the metaphor of renting, basically we are renting out the goose and buying back the eggs. That is a considerable mistake.

With regard to Senator O'Donnell's proposal, she first articulated what I have always thought was a prime article of faith for a socialist, to control and keep nationally the productive elements in terms of the financial strength of the country. I thought that was a sine qua non , that we wanted to keep our wealth and use it in the interest of the people of Ireland. I support that aim completely. It is stated in her motion: "ensure that the ownership of the National Lottery Licence remains entirely within the State ... conduct a competitive process" but ensuring that the profits are "wholly and entirely" used for the welfare and "benefit of the Irish people." Who can argue with that? I certainly cannot and I doubt if the Minister will be able to. Then there is provision to "build the Children?s Hospital". That aim has been built into Senator O'Donnell's motion. Let us not have any of this business whenever we speak about this matter, and to which I have referred previously, of "Don't hit me with the baby in my arms." The baby is still in the arms of Senator O'Donnell and she will fight to protect it. I do not accept that the children's hospital will in any way be affected by accepting her motion.

I would like to ask Senator Clune a question. She is a very decent Member of the House. What did she mean by or the Minister can spell out what is meant by "ongoing provision of a significant level of funding for good causes"? What is a significant level? I would like to know.

Within the past week I watched "Nationwide" and a very moving part of the programme dealt with a facility for people in Kildare affected by spina bifida. There was a woman whose life had been absolutely revived by being involved in a sports recreational hall that had been provided by lottery funds. A young man was interviewed and he said that it had been a positive thing for him to end up in a wheelchair because he never would have competed at international level in sports. I thought that was an astonishing comment. At least the lottery gives hope, optimism and some degree of future to these people, yet we are talking of giving it away to the international gambling combines.

Let us look at them. One of them was Camelot which was said in an article recently to be eyeing up the licence. Of course it is. Why is it eyeing it up? It is eyeing it up because it can make more profit than we can or at least it thinks so. I want the profit to stay here. I do not see why, since we are a Republic, we want to give it away to the English or, as they have now been identified, a teachers' pension fund in Ontario. What is the point of doing that? That is what we did with Eircom. We gave Eircom away and it became a pension fund in Australia. A well named Australian company is interested in the lottery and is called Tatts. If not Tatts, how about the Italian gaming giant Lottomatica who hid under the sobriquet of GTEC? I feel it would be a very funny exercise if we were to hand away our national gambling institution to the Italians because their reputation in that area has not been entirely without odour.

In my opinion the Minister has indicated - he will correct me if I am wrong as I would not want to do him an injustice - that there will be ¤200 million set aside for the national children's hospital. That is the kind of figure that is being talked of. Various estimations of the value of the lottery sale have been tossed around and range between ¤400 million and ¤600 million. An independent assessor who knows the market has said that it is about ¤100 million. We may get ¤100 million but we spend over ¤230 million every year so the sums do not add up, just like Coillte. The sale of Coillte was a brainwave until Professor Peter Bacon pointed out that it was financial madness that would expose us to ¤1.3 billion of downside consequences. Why are we doing this? It worries me very much. It seems to me to be all of a piece of this kind of daft thing. We are selling for ¤100 million, which is what we will probably get, something that brings in ¤230 million every year for the State.

The areas in which the lottery funding is disbursed is on sport and recreating, health and welfare, arts and culture, Irish language, all activities with which we agree. I should state a vested interest in the lottery, I am one of a small number of people who still have my little plastic wallet and have been doing the lotto religiously since it started and I would like the Minister to know that I am very grateful - I won the Lotto on last Wednesday and I got ¤5 and two scratch tickets and one of the scratch tickets produced another scratch ticket that had two of everything and produced nothing.