James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have been waiting a long time for this legislation. Efforts have been made over the past 20 years to properly regulate gambling in this country, but often to no avail. It is important that we finally have a Bill with genuine momentum behind it, but, leaving aside regulation and licensing for a moment, one that also seeks to address the harms caused by excessive and problem gambling.

In preparing this Bill, it has been my priority to ensure it is as future-proofed as possible and can take account of new and emerging technologies and practices used by the sector in providing gambling activities and services. That is why many of the sections create a baseline but allow the regulator to make recommendations to the Minister to tighten things up, as necessary, by way of statutory instrument.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the primary objective of the Bill is to protect the public by establishing a framework for a robust regulatory and licensing regime for the gambling sector in Ireland. It provides for important matters such as the establishment of statutory functions of a body to be known as Údarás Rialála Cearrbhachais na hÉireann or the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland, with responsibility for licensing and regulating gambling in the State, the prohibition of the participation of children in gambling or their being employed in the gambling industry, and the establishment of a national gambling exclusion register and the social impact fund. There are to be obligations on licensees and others related to gambling advertising, promotion and sponsorship, particularly to address the widespread proliferation of gambling advertising online and on social media to safeguard persons participating in gambling. Also achieved will be the banning of credit cards as a means of payment for gambling, as well as the regulation of targeted incentives and inducements.

The Bill provides for several other protections, including the comprehensive licensing and regulation of gaming machines so the authority will be able to determine what types of gaming machines will be permitted for use in the State, and an obligation on licensees to establish and maintain dedicated segregated customer accounts to protect the customers' funds and, in addition to banning payment for gambling by credit card, provide the authority with the ability to prohibit any form of payment or customer account scheme or a feature of a customer account scheme that may contribute to excessive or compulsive gambling. The authority will have the ability to set limits on the amounts of money that may be lodged when gambling online and limits on the number of lodgements a person may make with licensees within a particular timeframe. There will be requirements on licensees to provide information to people gambling online while they are playing to inform them of their winnings and losses, as well as many others that I cannot outline in the House because time does not allow it.

In addition, it is my intention to make amendments on Committee Stage to exempt charitable and philanthropic licensees, including philanthropic sports licensees, from the advertising provisions in the Bill, and ensure that charitable and philanthropic licensees cannot be abused for personal gain or used to bypass the advertising restrictions within the Bill. In this regard, I think of many of the alcohol companies with their 0.0-type advertising. We can anticipate attempts to bypass by companies in the gambling industry, so we are going to include measures to prevent them. I intend to include further protections and safeguards, such as making it an obligation on a licensee, tied to their licence, not to unreasonably refuse the payment of winnings; clarify the scope and application of some of the sections in the Bill; address some technical matters and corrections in the Bill; to provide for transitional arrangements in respect of existing gambling legislation; and address standard issues such as repeals and necessary consequential amendments to other legislation.

The Bill addresses the imperative to comprehensively reform the regulatory and licensing regime for gambling in the State.It provides supports to those who need them most as a result of the harm caused by gambling. The debate has highlighted a number of the concerns that it will certainly be addressing.

I want to address a number of key issues. The Bill will regulate an activity that there has been no attempt to regulate since the 1950s but that is causing tsunami of social problems in our society. Gambling is not what it was 20 years ago. Extraordinary damage is being done to our society and to individuals, families and communities. As Senator Doherty stated, it is an insidious type of addiction. We can see people with an alcohol or drug addiction descending into that. Very often, the first time anybody knows that someone has a gambling addiction is when the sheriff is at the door, gardaí are at the door or the house is being repossessed. They have serious mental health issues, and some may take their own lives. It is a nasty addiction that creeps up on people. Most people gamble safely. It is a risky activity, however, and it is on a spectrum. It is bit like alcohol. Nobody starts off with a gambling addiction. They bet safely and bet for fun at the beginning and then move along that spectrum. We need to protect people. There are those who suggest that we only need to treat the people who are addicts. However, those people did not start out as addicts. They became addicts and moved along the spectrum. We need to identify where people are vulnerable on the risk spectrum.

Those involved in bingo have raised a slight change in wording relating to the €10 bet which could affect them because of the nature of their books. We have engaged with them and we will amend that if necessary in order to ensure that bingo can continue as heretofore. We do not want people having to keep track of someone having played bingo on a Tuesday night not being able to play bingo on a Wednesday night or having played in Dublin cannot play in Tipperary. Obviously, we do not want that situation. We are examining the matter to ensure that is not the case.

I flagged the amendment we will introduce relating to charities, including sporting organisations. The ban on gambling advertising for those with licences does not apply to, for example, a charity running a fun run. Most of us will have engaged with Pieta House. I do not think it has actually any gambling activities. It does not stop organisations with a licence putting Pieta House on its shirts. It stops them putting a gambling company on their shirts, which they do not do, of course.

I do not agree with the Senator who proposed that radio would be completely exempt from the legislation. It would mean that holding a radio licence could become the most valuable asset in the State and would exempt the holder from the anti-money laundering, anti-terrorist financing and child protection measures and all other measures in the legislation. I would not favour them being exempt.

We have gone to extraordinary lengths in the legislation to ensure that the horse racing and greyhound racing sector is protected. For example, we could have put blanket bans on sponsorship. We have put provisions into the legislation to ensure that what we call incidental advertising does not impact on the showing of horse racing. Therefore, anything that can be seen at a horse race today can still be seen after the legislation passes. A hoarding that might be at the back of a track, naming a race after a gambling company or people from gambling companies appearing to say what the odds are can all still be shown. There is no impact in showing, for example, Premier League football where there might be a sponsor on a jersey or something like that. There is no impact on the horse racing industry.

I wish to make clear that where we might be banning the withdrawal of cash or the presence of children on premises, there is no issue with having children somewhere like a racecourse, provided it is does not target children, affect the ability to withdraw cash and things of that nature.

Some in the horse racing sector has asked that racing channels would, in effect, be given a monopoly on showing gambling advertisements in the Republic. At the moment, it is two British TV stations. That exemption would not be for anything related to horse racing but anything to do with gambling. As Senator Cassells pointed out, most of those ads are for casinos, online gambling, poker or whatever the case may be. If we were to give two TV stations a monopoly on gambling advertising into the country, it would not survive under competition law. This would give them an extraordinary monopoly providing enormous financial worth to those companies.

They are subscription channels just as Sky Movies is a subscription channel. There is no end to subscription channels anymore. It is not something that would work in this State. It would not survive under the EU TRIS directive. I do not think the Irish State giving a monopoly on gambling advertising into a European Union state to two third-country TV stations would survive. It is completely untrue that there is any kind of technical impediment from them showing different advertisements in two different states. It does not stand up to any kind of scrutiny. In fact, TV stations now have the software to show two people in two houses beside each other different ads at the same time. Therefore, there is no technical difficulty there.

Senator Ward raised issues relating to the provisions in sections 80 and 81 regarding regulations and mandatory limits. We are satisfied that these are only baselines. The Attorney General has advised us that we can do it by putting in the baselines and giving the regulator the power to make recommendations to the Minister, who can make changes by way of statutory instrument.

We have very powerful regulations to tackle the black market, such as take-down notices, blocking and confiscation of funding.

A number of Senators referred to the protection of children. The legislation provides that anybody who breaks the law and is found targeting children within could face up to eight years imprisonment, which is a very serious penalty.

A number of other issues were also raised, but I think I have dealt with the most key ones. I would be happy to respond to any other matters at a later date. As I said, we will introduce a number of significant amendments. I am very glad that this legislation survived the Dáil. It contains 220 sections. A number of issues need to be clarified and resolved. However, that is the whole purpose of having ten different Stages in the Dáil and Seanad. It allows us to test, prove, challenge and work on it. I fundamentally disagree with the parties that simply voted to kill the Bill in the Dáil, which would have meant we simply would not have been here discussing it. That was a completely wrong approach. I look forward to engaging with Senators as we go along and making further improvements.