Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Wall. It is one of those occasions where nobody is at odds with each other in the Chamber. We are all speaking with a passion about this particular problem and have done so consistently over a long period. The speakers in this room have been consistent in that.

I will take the time to pay tribute to the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne. He is the first Minister or Minister of State who is prepared to take this on, grapple with it and not be afraid of those who would try to be a bully, such as big industry. He has the backbone. It is a minefield, but he has stepped on. It is problematic. I know that in the general scheme of Senator Wall's Bill he has looked at the issue of advertising and sponsorship and how to deal with it. We will be able to tease that out during the debate with the Minister of State as well.

When we look at the advertising surrounding the Cheltenham festival, we see that the companies concerned are some of the most creative. These guys are making billions when it comes to advertising. It is a little like Guinness when it used to sponsor the hurling championship. The advertisements are some of the most entertaining things. They are so good because they have got high-profile people, such as the one last week featuring Colm Meaney saying, "It's coming home, lads" and the Irish invasion of Cheltenham. It is a great ad, it is nuanced and it is like a call to a patriotic act of being Irish. What is it actually doing? It is asking people to wage their money with Paddy Power.

We then have the whole area of brand ambassadors. What in God's name is that? Very high-profile Irish sportspeople are prepared to lend their names to it. We do not need legislation to deal with that. We need to call out the people who are prepared, as high-profile Irish sportspeople, to put their names to these companies for moolah.That does not need legislation. It needs them to be called out. I have done that across a number of sports, not only horse racing but GAA as well, because the reach of the companies has gone beyond. We talked about advertisements. Senator Carrigy rightly spoke of the coupons that used be on the front of the newspaper. My God, they have gone so far beyond that it is unreal.

I pay tribute to the leaders in Irish sport who are standing up, in particular in the FAI, and to the campaign led, first of all, by the chairman of Drogheda United, Mr. Conor Hoey. I refer to the Big Step campaign, which aims to rebuff and to ban sponsorship in the League of Ireland because that is what it takes. We can pass all the legislation we want. Leaders in society will always achieve more.

In 2020, people in Ireland lost €1.4 billion gambling and the losses were the fourth most in the EU.

It is the online sphere that we really need to look at in this debate. As I said, we have moved away from the newspapers. The drug lords would be jealous of the fact that this is an industry which can keep people hooked through algorithms. When you pick up your phone, your timeline becomes flooded with advertisements because they have created a case file on you. This issue was exposed by Paul Merson, the high-profile former Arsenal soccer player, in a documentary he made with the BBC last year. Mr. Merson, who lost every single penny he made from his football days, subjected his brain to neurological tests which showed that people who are addicts are susceptible to that targeted advertising. We see now that in sport, the boards placed behind players and managers after games carry the advertising logos of these companies. That torments people more, but we can take a stand. We always say that it is a wider European or global issue and that competitions transcend international boundaries, but we can take a stand. A prime example of that could be seen in France last week at the conclusion of the six nations rugby championship or, as it is officially called, the "Guinness Six Nations". The pinnacle of that championship, the big game, was France versus England in Paris. During the games that were played elsewhere earlier that day, "Guinness" was plastered across the pitch, on the ball and on the hoardings, but not in Paris because the French have a law banning this form of alcohol advertising. The word "Guinness" could not appear and it had to be replaced with the word "Greatness". "Guinness" appeared nowhere in Paris. This shows that it can be done.

I am not coming in here and being a hypocrite. I gambled every single day last week on Cheltenham and I am the worst punter in the world. The horses that I back are cursed. One of the horses I backed was winning coming up the straight, collapsed and had to be put down. My friend turned to me and said, "Cassells, you are responsible for that." However, I had put aside an amount of money to have the craic with my friends last week. I knew that when that money was gone, those were my losses allocated for the week. By the way, I won on not one race, but I had the fun with my friends in the pub and the craic and that was the fun I derived from that.