Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. It is good to see him here again to discuss gambling. It shows the commitment that he has. I would also like to congratulate Senator Wall and the Labour Party. It has been a passion of the Senator's for a long time to end the scourge of gambling addiction, and this Bill goes some way towards doing that.

It is important to put on the record what the Minister of State has done as well. The Bill would actually enhance it and brings it to the fore, which is very important. I welcome the announcement a few weeks ago from the Minister of State that applications have opened for the role of chief executive of the new gambling regulatory authority. Advertising by both commercial and non-commercial entities will be within the remit of the chief executive and a team of up to 100 people. This would fulfil the programme for Government commitment that Senator Carrigy mentioned of the three parties in the Government to regulate this largely unregulated sector of society.

Globally, Ireland has one of the highest levels of online gambling per capitaand one of the highest levels of gambling losses per capitaas well. It is difficult enough to walk down a high street and avoid a gambling shop, as it were, but it is impossible to avoid it online. I note with some horror some of the celebrities who now seem to be throwing themselves into the middle of this, such as Peter Crouch and, more recently, Colm Meany. It sticks in one’s memory because these people are known. It makes gambling look very attractive and exciting. It is unfortunate that celebrities would choose to do that.

It also means that more regulation is required because obviously people are not stepping up to the mark and making these decisions for the best interest of young people, in particular, which is the area where we are seeing the increase. We saw through Covid that we had an increase in young boys, in particular, gambling online. It is one of the notable trends in gambling that we have these kinds of blurred lines between gambling and fun. There is an increase, which I have spoken about before, of the prevalence of loot boxes in video games. They have muddied the distinction because they are mystery boxes which can sometimes be purchased with real money and the value of their contents involves chance or luck, which is ultimately gambling. There was a report that showed that 40% of children open these loot boxes. That is 40% of people choosing to gamble in the middle of something that is a game and meant to be fun. They do not identify it with that, but it starts them on the path. That is very dangerous. Will the gambling regulator work with the online safety regulator? That is a key part of this issue.

I note that people have some concerns around sporting events, because there is a reliance by sporting organisations in many instances on gambling revenue. However, we have to get away from that. It is very unfortunate that there is a carve-out in this Bill for greyhound racing. I do not see why that is so. That is very questionable because things such as greyhound racing could not survive without the money that it gets from advertising. All of the money that goes into it is probably coming from some form of advertising. It would actually be a good by-product of a Bill like this if that is stopped because I do not think the industry would survive and is not the kind of industry that we as a Government and as a country should be supporting.

Like Senators Carrigy and Crowe, we will not be objecting to the Bill. As I said, we welcome it. However, I would add some of those caveats. I would agree very much with some of the comments by Senator Mullen around lotteries. I am reminded of the last time we had a Private Members' Bill on betting on lottery wins proposed by one of the Fine Gael Senators, namely, Senator Ward. We actually had people from the national lottery ringing us as Senators before that Bill came into the Chamber. Some of us were phoned several times by the national lottery. Again, who is paying for that? Who is paying for them to ring us and basically try to lobby us to support the national lottery? They were asking me if I was surprised at how much was going into local communities. I actually was surprised – I thought it was an awful lot more before they told me. It was a missed opportunity to try to lobby somebody. However, they would not have been successful in any case.

I look forward to hearing the Minister of State’s comments.