Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Like others have said, this is important legislation. It is welcome. It has been long awaited. It will completely reform the regulatory landscape for the gambling industry in Ireland. I am glad this Bill has finally made its way to us here in the Seanad. I look forward to working with the Minister of State and my colleagues here in the Upper House to make improvements to the Bill in the amending stages. It has been two years since the Joint Committee on Justice completed its pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. I am glad a number of the committee's recommendations have been addressed in the version of the Bill we are considering today. While I appreciate the sense of urgency that exists with regard to enactment of this legislation, I hope we can take some time to tease out any apparent issues or weaknesses in the Bill here in the Seanad over the coming weeks.

It is positive to see gambling becoming more tightly regulated in Ireland, particularly at a time when regulations are being loosened in other big markets and jurisdictions, most notably the United States. It has become incredibly difficult to disentangle the gambling industry from professional sports. It has also become increasingly difficult to disentangle gambling from gaming and gaming from gambling. At the same time, we are also observing surging interest in digital currencies and unbacked crypto assets. While these are more of a financial service, albeit incredibly speculative, they exhibit high levels of volatility and risk that closely resemble gambling activity and which mirror its most acute harms. While there are obviously challenges that come with regulating the industry more tightly, it is important we maintain focus on the individuals who use gambling services or are engaged in gambling activity and how we can protect and safeguard them and reduce the associated harms from problem gambling through robust legislative protections.

We also have to look at strengthening the safeguards for those who are not currently engaged in gambling activity, especially children and young people, as others have said, who we do not want to see develop problem gambling habits or addiction. From looking at the data, we know a significant number of people in Ireland gamble. A report published last October by the ESRI advised that one in 30 Irish adults has a gambling problem, which is a tenfold increase on the equivalent statistic in 2019. The same report stated that an additional 7.1% of adults demonstrate moderate evidence of problem gambling. These figures are stark in and of themselves but do not fully reflect the wider impact of problem gambling on society, including its impact on families, partners, children and friends.Previous speakers referred to the fact that gambling historically took place behind closed doors, notwithstanding widespread unregulated gambling, and that we are now at a point where a significant and growing share of gambling activity takes place online. This obviously poses significant challenges for the public and for us, as legislators. It is something we need to be more mindful of. We have to move from constantly reacting to sectoral and technological developments to being more proactive in terms of keeping speed with those developments and providing for more expedient, rights-based regulations that keep people who use these services safe from harm.

While the Bill offers some protections in terms of the online space, I firmly believe it does not go far enough. I intend to introduce amendments on Committee Stage to bake additional safeguards and rights-based protections into the primary legislation in order to address the shortfall. There is significant concern regarding the amount of data that is captured by, available to and shared between licence holders and that ultimately allows licence holders to target service users who are susceptible or more vulnerable to their messaging. Licence holders will use recommender systems to micro-target individuals, encouraging them ultimately to spend more time and money with their service and to do so more frequently. It is an incredibly problematic and damaging practice which I do not feel is adequately addressed in the Bill's provisions. When we debated the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill in this Chamber in 2022, I and my colleagues in the Civil Engagement Group tabled a number of constructive amendments in respect of the promotion of algorithmic safety and the curtailment of micro-targetting of individuals through recommender systems in online spaces. I intend to table amendments to this Bill which reflect the spirit of and intention behind the amendments tabled in 2022.

A significant issue for me on first reading the Bill was the fact that the only mention of harm is in respect of the degree of harm that is to be considered as the result of a contravention of a relevant obligation under the Bill. The programme for Government contains a commitment to establishing a gambling regulator focused on public safety and well-being, while the Minister of State in November 2022 advised that the focus on preventing harm is of vital importance in this legislation. However, harm goes unmentioned in the Bill in most respects. There is simply not enough weight given to protecting consumers. There are restrictions on advertising and particularly strong and welcome restrictions where those advertisements might be seen by children. There are conditions that ensure that gambling licences are not located near schools. There are functions that allow the authority to refuse applications for gaming licences in respect of games that do not meet the standards the authority has set into effect. These standards should be the focus of those who are advocating against fixed-odds betting terminals and the more inducing, predatory behaviour of gambling licensees.

In the absence of the new authority being given a specific mandate for the protection of consumers and the reduction of harm, my fear is that it will need considerable direction. Barry Grant and Tony O'Reilly, both addiction counsellors with specialist expertise on problem gambling and gambling addiction, stated in their written submission to the Joint Committee on Justice that the authority should mandate a range of responsible gambling initiatives, advocating for the insertion of spending limits, to include bet limits applying to the number of bets per month, time limits applying to the hours spent gambling per week or month, and spend limits on the amount of money one is comfortable losing per month. The only mention of spending limits in the final version of the Bill is the provision to oblige staff of licence holders to allow a relevant participant to set limits on their own spending. Mr. Grant and Mr. O'Reilly also flagged the issue of the access that the gambling industry has to vast amounts of consumer data and the need for these markers of harm to be accessible to the gambling regulatory authority in the form of anonymised, randomised data sets, so that it can adequately safeguard individuals at risk.

My final point relates to the social impact fund that is to be established under the Bill. This is a welcome initiative, but we need greater clarity about the plan for the fund and its implementation.There is major potential for the fund to be utilised in a positive way to increase the level of awareness around the risks and potential harms associated with gambling, to mitigate some of the damage caused by problem gambling and gambling addiction and to facilitate investment in communities that are most acutely affected by problem gambling. When we think of that investment, we must consider that gambling is a multibillion dollar industry. Whatever money will be used to fund the social impact fund, it would really want to mirror the amount made in profits by the industry and not be such a small amount that has to be shared across the whole country. Given that the gambling industry takes in so much money, the social impact fund should really reflect this.

There needs for transparency in respect of the fund in the context of how the moneys are collected and reinvested and the level of adequate oversight, robust monitoring and evaluation to which it will be subject. We must ensure that it has the intended impact.

I have only been able to give a small flavour to some of the concerns I have regarding the Bill. I look forward to working with the Minister of State and my colleagues to tease out these concerns a little more in the weeks ahead. Hopefully, we can engage with the Department before we table amendment for Committee Stage.