Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill which I know is an interim measure as the Government intends to bring forward much more fundamental legislation to regulate gambling. The placing of caps of €10 and €750 on stakes is to be welcomed. The Bill allows the Minister of State to amend these limits in the future. That is important. It is also important that he engage regularly with those dealing with the consequences of problem gambling to see if the limits are having the desired effect.

The fact that the Bill seeks to amend legislation dating from 1956 shows that it is badly needed. Has the Cabinet seen and discussed the recommendations made by the working group that examined the general scheme of the 2013 Gambling Control Bill? In much of the lobbying on the legislation I have been asked why the Government did not introduce the more comprehensive gambling control Bill. We have the scheme of a Bill, had years of engagement with all relevant bodies in the sector and the report of the working group, but it was uncertain from the Minister of State’s comments in this House in February in responding to a Private Members' Business matter whether the Government had accepted the need for an independent, self-financing regulator as opposed to one that would be attached to the Department of Justice and Equality. When the control of gambling Bill is eventually brought before the Oireachtas, we will have to remember that it will primarily be to prevent harmful gambling and regulate the many people who enjoy gambling safely. Many do gamble responsibly. There are also responsible people in the gambling industry who have followed voluntary codes of conduct on age limits, etc. in the absence of legislation.

Before any final decision is taken on the gambling control Bill I ask the Government to reflect on its method of collecting data for the prevalence of problem gambling. Recently flawed and dated figures were released by the HSE which were at variance with new and anecdotal evidence. In good faith they cannot be used as an accurate basis for policy formation. The Government used different criteria to assess and identify the scale of problem gambling from those used in separate surveys in the North of Ireland and by the British Gambling Commission.Is the Government honestly saying that the problem gambling rate in Dundalk is 0.8%, but the problem gambling rate in Newry is 2.3%? This is why an all-Ireland approach to such issues is vital. Sinn Féin wants to see an all-Ireland approach and that is why my party colleagues such as Sinéad Ennis MLA and Deputy Ó Laoghaire have recently launched an all-island policy document around problem gambling and I also want to acknowledge again the work done by Lynn Boylan, MEP on this subject at a European level.

Two separate gambling prevalence surveys carried out for the North of Ireland produced similar results by identifying a problem gambling rate of over 2%. The Government here wants us to believe that on the other side of the invisible line, the problem rate is 0.8%. We are talking about identical products, people and cultures but the Government believes the situation dramatically changes once one crosses the Border. We need a dedicated problem gambling survey with a straight comparison with the North, with Scotland, with Wales and with England. Furthermore, the data released in March are nearly five years old and are not good enough to base policy formation on. The South of Ireland has the highest online gambling losses in the world per capitaand the third highest gambling losses overall per capita. The recent figures the HSE released do not reflect this and it would make one think that there is not a problem here. On Committee Stage, we will introduce amendments relating to concerns around gambling addiction and the lack of measures in this Bill to tackle it.

I know from dealing with the Minister of State and from working with him on the Domestic Violence Act that he is open to producing the best legislation possible and I know he understands the seriousness of the problem of gambling addiction as well. I also acknowledge the Minister of State's work in the project that I attended last Friday in the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life in Castlebar. That work with the school in Ballina and with the Traveller's journey is of great importance and it is particularly important in the times when we have moves to the extreme right and all of the negatives that are going on in society so I acknowledge the Minister of State's contribution to that.