Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I support this Bill on the simple premise that this is our national lottery. It is independently regulated. It should have an ethos of care that goes above and beyond. It should be a more controlled environment. Thirty cent from every euro collected goes to good causes and that dividend, on which the national lottery is based, is not going where it should go when a ticket is purchased in the bookies.

I am very much of the opinion that we should be separating the national lottery and good causes, low-odds draws and community lotteries, on one hand, from gambling, on the other. We have two items of legislation that govern those two areas but we must do everything we can around that ethos of care because the consumer does not make the distinction.

I read what the Irish Bookmakers Association sent. I am not a hypocrite. I enjoy a flutter at Punchestown or Fairyhouse but I have opted into those events as an adult introduced to gambling in a lesson-based way in an environment that was much more controlled. That is very important because the blur between gambling and entertainment has gone too far and it does bleed into family entertainment. Gambling is very accessible. Looking at the Irish Bookmakers Association's reasons for retaining the situation as it stands, it is not the controlled environment that my colleague, Senator Carrigy, has outlined relating to the local retailer. That five cent that might be used to buy a lottery ticket or to put down a bet is upselling and that is not what this is supposed to be.

I believe player protections are there in terms of not using credit cards. Acquiring or purchasing a ticket for the lotto through the bookies definitely displaces money for good causes whereas there are transaction limits, ID verification and time restrictions elsewhere, even for the lotto's online presence. There is a responsibility to pursue best practice there. That needs to continue and be taken seriously.

Organisations have benefited through the sports capital grant, even in my own area. It is a phenomenal amount of money. Some €6 billion has been paid out since the start of the grant. I will welcome it when we see gambling regulation.

I agree that we need to do a lot of work on advertising. Bookmakers have rebranded over the past ten years. Bookies used to be smoke-filled places that only men over a certain age would have gone into. They rebranded and repositioned themselves ten years ago and completely changed their market, not just online but also physically. That has had a big impact. We need to take control of that. I do not see the national lottery in that guise but we need to protect that, commit ourselves to that and make the ethos of care a priority. We must make sure the social dividend is going where it should go.