Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:- notes the establishment of the Inter-Departmental Working Group on Gambling in January 2018;

- considers it appropriate that due regard be given to establishing a Gambling Regulatory Authority;

- acknowledges that problem gambling can result in the problem gambler, and their family, bearing the severest economic and personal costs;

- recognises recent research published by the UK Gambling Commission and others which provide a list of the social costs of gambling, including loss of employment, experience of bankruptcy and/or debt, loss of housing/homelessness, crime associated with gambling, relationship breakdown/problems and health-related problems;

- calls on the Government to publish the final Report of the Inter-Departmental Working Group on Gambling and accelerate plans to introduce a Gambling Regulatory Authority.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, to the House to discuss a issue that is close to his heart and one on which he has expended some time. I also welcome the publication today of the first set of data on gambling in Ireland. I look forward to examining the scale of the field work, the sample size and the findings.

As an initial response, I believe that the focus on lottery tickets and scratch cards obscures the millions of euro being spent on other forms of gambling, particularly in unregulated online environments. I also welcome the news that the Government will publish the final report of the interdepartmental working group on gambling shortly. As I have the opportunity to address the Minister of State directly now, I ask him to define what "shortly" means, if we can expect to have the report before the Easter break and if we can have a specific date, please.

I will be forgiven for showing a certain level of impatience with the rate of progress on this issue, which the Minister of State will agree has been protracted. The first time I spoke in the House about gambling was on the Betting (Amendment) Act 2015, to which I introduced a number of amendments calling for warnings similar to those on cigarette packets to be displayed on online and static betting operations. It was an eye-opener for me that day to get such strong support from all sides of the House. In the end, though, the Whip was enforced and the Act was passed without my amendments.

In the course of preparing those amendments, I came into contact with families and individuals whose lives were plagued by the often silent and sometimes invisible scourge of problem gambling. The following year, I held a well attended briefing on the need for a gambling control Bill to regulate the sector, a Bill for which there was widespread support.

To say that the pace of change has been slow is an understatement. In fact, 2,000 days have passed since the Act was first drafted. For every one of those 2,000 days, someone's life has been adversely affected by problem gambling. It has been a staggering 1,000 days and six parliamentary terms since this Government committed to introducing a gambling control Bill, yet nothing has moved.

The current legislation is antiquated. It is difficult to believe that Ireland's gambling and gaming legislation predates the electrification of the country. Gaming in Ireland is governed by the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 and betting is primarily regulated by the Betting Act 1931. Given the vast advances of the past 20 years in how people gamble, these regulations were described by a 2007 report by the casino committee as a "relic of social history ... utterly unsuited to effectively regulate gaming in a modern, wealthy European state". This antiquated legislation has had adverse effects on the lives of problem gamblers and their families. By neglecting to put in place an appropriate regulatory framework, successive Governments - this has not happened on the Minister of State's watch alone - have actively contributed to the scale of problem gambling. It has been irresponsible and, with advances in technology and with online sport betting companies ramping up their advertising to unprecedented levels, the rise in problem gambling will be exponential.

I note with interest from the data set released today the correlation between problem gambling among young males and unregulated access to online and telephone gambling. This is a sinister and worrying statistic. I welcome the statistics issued today. We are not short of evidence from other sources either. According to conservative estimates, there are at least 45,000 people living in Ireland with a "severe pathological gambling addiction". Based on international evidence, there are a further 110,000 Irish citizens who suffer from a milder form of problem gambling. What people might not know is that Ireland also has the highest online gambling losses per capitaglobally and the third highest overall gambling losses per capita. Somebody is making a lot of money from Irish citizens in an unregulated and highly lucrative environment. Even the average punter for whom gambling is not a problem is at a disadvantage compared to his or her European and global counterparts.

This is fast becoming a case of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, given that the legislative response to this crisis has been one of delays and piecemeal legislation. I commend my Fianna Fáil colleagues on introducing the Gambling Control Bill 2018 and regret that its progression through the Oireachtas has been blocked by the Government, given that it requires a money message. I note that the Minister for Justice and Equality will introduce a gaming and lotteries (amendment) Bill.This Bill is purely technical and contains no meaningful consumer protection measures. I am unclear as to why updating stakes and prizes, the amounts which can be waged and won in gaming, is a priority for the Department when the gambling control Bill would bring in the necessary reforms. To me this constitutes a waste of precious departmental time and taxpayers' money. It does not give me confidence that the gambling control Bill will be progressed as a matter of urgency. I made reference earlier to the interdepartmental working group report. Will the Minister of State ensure, as per international best practice, that there is sufficient time for public and stakeholder consultation in the drafting of the revised general scheme of the gambling control Bill? Can he confirm that the gambling control Bill will allow for the establishment of an independent regulator for the gambling industry? I accept the Minister of State's bona fides in attempting to tackle unregulated gambling. However I still have a grave concern that in trying to produce the perfect legislation we have already run the risk of letting perfection become the enemy of good regulation. I said at the outset that I truly believe the Minister of State has a deep concern about gambling and the regulation thereof. I trust we will hear something this evening that will substantiate that belief, or at least help me to believe it.