Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's statement on gambling control. We all know Ireland is the wild west of gambling and successive Governments have done nothing to rein it in. We have been talking about a gambling control Bill since 2013. Today, I will particularly focus on the issue of underage gambling and the impact of gambling on young people.

We know that in our nearest neighbour the number of people aged 11 to 16 with gambling problems has quadrupled in the last few years. Gambling rates there are higher in young people than they are for alcohol, smoking or drugs. Recent data for Ireland shows that problem gambling among male teens has more than doubled in four to five years.

In 2017, I held a conference called "We Need to Talk About Gambling". At that conference, Professor Samantha Thomas outlined the impact that gambling advertising has on young people, how it normalised the association of sport and gambling and how children identified teens with their betting sponsor. Terrifyingly, her data showed children as young as 10 had a basic understanding of odds. They knew if their team was 2/1, it was favourite to win the match. Her research was carried out in Australia and New Zealand but it could just as well apply here. We have a completely normalised relationship between sport and betting. We have no watershed on gambling advertising. Sports and gambling go hand in hand.

I encourage the Minister of State to go on Greyhound Racing Ireland's website. It says it is paused but dog tracks are continuing to offer communion and confirmation parties to families with at-table betting. For as little as €35 per table one can bring one's family along for a communion. Until as recently as 2019, when the Gaming and Lotteries (Amendment) Act was passed, the children making their communion were able to participate in that tote betting. Children are also targeted on social media platforms and through family-friendy gaming apps with cartoon characters that offer in-app purchases and gambling functions.

We have to stop the cycle of problem gambling and we do that through robust advertising legislation with no self-regulation and no soft touch. We need tighter age verification processes and the breaking of the link between sports, gaming and gambling. We also have to recognise that problem gambling is not just the extreme stories that make the newspapers of individuals who lose their homes or suffer marital breakdown. Problem gambling is when people have to sacrifice on essentials in their family because they are spending money on gambling. Problem gambling is when they sacrifice on quality time with their children and family because they are spending that time gambling. We need to recognise that it is not about the extremes. Problem gambling is a huge problem in this country.