Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last night on "Claire Byrne Live", Irish entertainer and comedian, Rory O'Connor, spoke openly and candidly about his challenges with gambling and its impact on his life and family. An hour earlier, on BBC One, the famous soccer pundit and ex-Arsenal footballer, Paul Merson, had a special show detailing his lifelong battle with gambling and how he has lost £7 million to gambling. He was left penniless and living in rented accommodation, never mind the impact on his mental health.

Over the last year, I have spoken extensively in this Chamber about the scourge of the gambling sector in this country. I was glad to hear the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, announce in his budget speech that funding is being made available for the establishment of the gambling regulatory authority. However, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, in his speech announced a tax relief credit for the digital gaming sector at the rate of 32% of expenditure up to €25 million on the design, production and testing of a game. This is a wide encompassing sector, primarily focused on children and teenagers in the area of gaming. In recent years, the gambling industry has sought to rebrand its online gambling casino products under the name "gaming". This includes digital technology adopted from the gaming industry. I am asking that in the Finance Bill, where this is to be fleshed out, we make clear that products developed by these independent companies for the big gambling companies, which are billion euro enterprises, do not qualify for this particular relief. It was explained on "Clare Byrne Live" last night that these companies have analytic technicians who detail the cookies of addicts so that they are then able to further fuel their addiction. They create case studies on these people. They know through their analytics that these people are addicts and they keep fuelling that addiction with these products. What an irony it would be if we were to afford them a tax credit to allow them to further enhance their research to keep people addicted to this drug. I am aware of the area at which this is primarily focused, but I would hope that the Finance Bill can be strengthened to make sure that no company developing products for the gambling industry can qualify for this relief.