John O'Mahony (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There should be co-operation between sporting organisations and the Government to facilitate these people in telling their stories to every secondary school student in the country. They are horror stories about how a person's life can spin totally out of control. Such case studies may make a perfect case for establishing a gambling regulatory authority.

The advertising, sponsorship and promotion of gambling products need to be examined. I was a Member of the other House when the lottery licence was to be sold to a new company. One of the new companies wanted to make more opportunities available online for people to get involved. Everybody is complicit in this. There is a big hubbub about sponsorship and promotional advertising of alcohol, and rightly so. That issue has been dealt with to a certain extent. Looking across the water, many of the premiership soccer clubs were sponsored by betting companies in the past, and obviously we have no control over that here. One famous GAA club in Ireland, Crossmaglen GAA club, was sponsored, and I am not sure if it still is, by a betting company. Sporting organisations, the State and the Government need to take control of this.

I note the Minister of State will bring the final report of the interdepartmental working group on gambling to Government in a few weeks. I very much welcome that and urge him to implement the recommendations of that report without delay.