Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to second Senator Craughwell's amendment. There are one or two points to which I want to draw the Minister of State's attention. I was coming over to this House from my other place of work and in Cuffe Street I found myself sitting behind a van. I will not use names because I do not want to abuse my position. It was from a city outside of Dublin. The name of the business included the word "casino" and it had a .ie web address. The back of the van advertised slots, roulette, poker, jackpot and multigames and featured a huge picture of a roulette wheel which covered both doors. Two things occurred to me when I saw that van. First, it shows how flagrant the abuse of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 is. On the back of the van was geographical information referring to Athy, Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Mallow, Naas, Waterford and Wexford. It occurred to me that to the best of my knowledge, the District Court has authorised gaming to be carried on by way of machines in none of those places. As such, the reference to slots was strange.

Senator Norris and I have remarked to each other that in Dublin the number of casinos featuring gaming machines has exploded. This activity is flagrant and takes place right before the eyes of the public. Even under the existing law, all of the machines in question are liable to be seized and removed by members of An Garda Síochána in my view. Huge money must be made from them. In England there has been debate about fixed-odds betting terminals and setting maximum stakes for them, which has been the subject of controversy. Their availability in so many places in England is frightening. I thought we had a law which prohibited all of that. I wonder what the Garda Commissioner, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Department of Justice and Equality is going to do to enforce the law and close these places down. As far as I can recall, in the last 20 years Dublin City Council has never adopted a resolution which would permit such places to operate in the city. I do not believe that Cork, Mallow, Athy, Naas, Wexford or Waterford have adopted resolutions to that effect either. However, all of these operations seem to be carried on illegally and flagrantly, such that this multicoloured van with a sophisticated paint scheme was driving through our streets, clearly servicing such bodies in several locations where it is a criminal offence to operate slot machines and gaming arcades of the kind in question.

I support this Bill and I oppose the unsuccessful efforts to amend it to make more people victims to the undoubtedly addictive nature of gaming machines. I fully recognise that what Senator Craughwell has said to the House is correct. A Sky TV customer cannot fail to be struck by the vast amount of advertising of various bingo and online roulette games which seem to be permissible in the UK. My own experience is this. I have no particular objection to controlled online gambling on horse racing or football matches if it enhances the pleasure that football and racing fans get from those sports, which appears to be the case. However, I strongly object to a situation where we have established a law giving members of local authorities the right to determine whether gaming machines should be permitted to operate in their functional areas and that law is utterly ignored and trampled upon by people who must be making a fortune from doing so, while the powers of An Garda Síochána in respect of such machines simply are not enforced.

I do not want to comment on it, but I know this has come before the courts in recent times. It has been a long time since this became apparent. I regret to say that in some cases, some members of the district Judiciary have been codded by people claiming to have licences from the Revenue Commissioners in circumstances where no such licences could or should be made available because the local authority had made no resolution under the relevant part of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956. Whatever the case is, I wish this Bill every fair passage and I ask the Minister of State to take Senator Craughwell's point on board.