Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a few points. Senator Carrigy has highlighted that there are other lottery products offered that cost less. I acknowledge that there are people who use this facility through bookmakers and book with much smaller stakes. I am not sure that they are such a massive proportion of the market that it is a significant disadvantage of this legislation, but it is a fair point. At the same time, there is a suggestion that somehow, bookmakers are going to be at a huge loss as a result of the legislation. I do not accept that. Even according to some of the big commercial bookmakers' own figures, this is not going to have a substantial impact. We cannot have it both ways. On the one hand, it has been said the industry is one of the biggest industries in Ireland and on the other, it has been suggested that it might suffer significantly because we are taking the 50 cent bets out of the bookmakers. I do not think anybody is directly saying that but it cannot be both ways. It has to be one or the other. The bookmaking industry in this country is doing well. I am not anti-bookmaking or anti-betting. I am not a regular better but I would not be opposed to putting one on. I certainly do not want to hit small independent bookmakers around the country, the kind of people that the two Senators have been talking about. I do not want to hit them any more than anyone else does.

At the same time, Senator Crowe stated that they paid €100 million in betting levies. What he means to say, of course, is that they have paid their due tax under the system. That is not altruistic, nor is the support for the racing industry. Bookmakers in Ireland are commercial entities that are designed to make money. I make no criticism of them for that. Sometimes in politics there is an underlying criticism of people who want to make money but if people do not make money in this country, the economy does not work and we cannot provide the services for people that we all want to. I have no problem with people who want to make money. We must distinguish them from the national lottery, however, which in a very tangible way plugs a lot of money, not in an altruistic fashion and as one might also say as their legal due is as well, into a system from which all of our communities benefit. We have mentioned them to a significant extent in respect of the good causes funding that gives rise to the sports capital grants. The other important distinction is that the national lottery is regulated. I know that Senator Davitt was talking specifically about the forthcoming gambling regulator that we anticipate will regulate the bookmaking industry. That is totally separate from the national lottery regulator that regulates the lottery. They are two separate things, as I said earlier. They are also distinguished because the national lottery puts in place lots of restrictions. For example, Senator Davitt mentioned his opposition to mobile phone betting. I agree with him. I think the publicity surrounding commercial bookmaking and online gambling, or gaming, as it is called, because I think that is seen as a slightly more nuanced or acceptable term, is enormous. If you watch any sports event on television, if you play a game online, if you are involved in anything in an app, often you will be bombarded with ads for online gambling. I agree that this is really problematic. You cannot do that with the national lottery. You cannot spend more than €90 per day with the national lottery. There are lots of restrictions in place. When I was much younger, I worked in a family shop in Connemara. There was a particular person in the village who would get her social welfare and spend it all on scratch cards. You cannot do that any more. Those restrictions are in place. At the moment, they do not apply to the gambling industry. I suspect something similar will apply in due course when the gambling regulation legislation comes to us and is passed. We all look forward to that. However, there is a really important distinction to be made between what the national lottery does and what the gaming or gambling industry does. It is quite right to point out that the national lottery has a monopoly in this country. It does, which is why, when it operates under that licence, it has to jump through certain hoops such as providing 27.5% of its income in funding that comes back to good causes and other things that funnel money back into the community, whether it is through the shops and the agents that work for them throughout the country or whatever else it might be, and the fact that it is regulated. Therefore, I would not say that the lottery has had a good run of it. That is not the way I would put it. The lottery has served us well. Senator Carrigy has gone through some of the hoops that he has to jump through as a lottery agent. It is strictly regulated and notwithstanding that regulation, it delivers a result tangibly for the community and the individual organisations within the community.The good-causes funding goes beyond the sports capital grants. There could perhaps be greater transparency around how it is spent but that is a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. I am sure the Minister has views on that. The point is that we know money from every euro spent on a lottery ticket or on any of the national lottery products is going back into that social dividend we talked about. That is tremendously important because it means that it is not, and I do not say this in a pejorative way, going into the coffers of a commercial enterprise. I do not criticise commercial enterprises as they are vitally important, but we, as a Legislature, should not seek to protect their income streams or to funnel more money to them. What we are trying to do is to keep money currently being diverted from the national lottery within the public realm where it benefits public services and public grants around the country. That is the purpose of the Bill. It is an important distinction between the two streams in regard to lotteries and gambling.