Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 263 seeks to insert a new section in the Bill that would place an obligation on licensees to safeguard their participants from excessive and compulsive gambling. We have mentioned on a number of occasions during the debate the fact that there exists a bit of an imbalance in the Bill with respect to the safeguarding of at-risk participants, with the responsibility for keeping participants safe being primarily placed on the participants as opposed to the licensee. This amendment tries to address this imbalance by imposing an obligation on licensees to take proactive measures to safeguard people from placing themselves at undue risk of harm. The obligation on the licensee would be to observe the gambling patterns of its users and to identify those with problematic patterns of activity. As I said earlier, gambling companies have often identified the pattern long before a person or their family has. Where a pattern like this is identified, the licensee would be mandated to cease accepting payments from a participant for a specified period; to inform that person of this matter; and to direct the person to the relevant supports. This amendment simply seeks to ensure that licensees would be prone to the potential vulnerability of its participants and to take proactive steps to keep them safe from harm.

Amendment No. 264 seeks to return section 152 to its original wording, amounting to an outright ban on gambling inducements. Senator Cassells praised the Minister in the opening debate of Committee Stage for not bending the knee to the Opposition on this Bill and he is certainly correct regarding the strong provisions around prohibitions on advertising. Unfortunately, since then, it seems the knee has been bent a little in section 152. Extern has detailed how, in its daily interactions with service users who struggle with gambling, it hears frequent stories of how relapses are triggered by offers of free bets, free spins, enhanced odds or other such inducements. These types of inducements are also an entry point into gambling for young people. There are clear examples of inducements being banned in different contexts. The national lottery is not allowed to provide tickets for free or at a reduced rate; alcohol retailers are prevented from operating happy hours or loyalty card programmes; and retailers are legally prevented from supplying voucher coupons for tobacco products. Again, these are all legal addictive products for over 18s, just like the product services being legislated for in this Bill. As such, our amendment seeks to return this section to its original wording for an outright ban on inducements. The question must be asked why an exception is being made for gambling when it comes to this.

Amendment No. 267 seeks to insert a new provision in the Bill which would place an obligation on licensees not to accept payment for gambling services from an individual using an unregulated or unauthorised financial entity. If incorporated into the Bill, gambling activities could only be paid for by an individual using funds housed or hosted in regulated and authorised financial entities. Regulated and authorised financial entities and firms are subject to greater oversight by regulatory authorities such as the Central Bank, which warned that poorly regulated financial institutions have the potential to harm customers and the wider economy. Robust financial regulation is an important tool to counteract this risk to protect consumers and the broader financial systems from that harm.

We know that regulated financial authorities, particularly legacy banks, pay very close attention to the behaviour of their customers, with particular respect to how spending patterns might affect their eligibility for products and services in the future. Certain regulated financial authorities in Ireland have additional safeguards in place that allow their customers to block the use of their bank cards for gambling services. Unregulated financial institutions are subject to less oversight and scrutiny and prone to greater levels of financial risk. Shadow banking, also known as non-banking financial intermediation or market-based finance, is one such example. Elizabeth McCaul, a member of the supervisory board of the European Central Bank, recently warned that a growth in lending by non-bank financial intermediaries is the biggest single threat to the stability of the eurozone. These institutions fall outside of traditional banking supervisory and regulatory parameters and, therefore, pose greater levels of risk for consumers and the wider economy. While there are welcome provisions in the Bill which would prevent an individual using a line of credit to pay for gambling activities, we feel the relevant section could be made much stronger to account for the risk posed to individuals using funds acquired or stored within unregulated or poorly regulated financial institutions.

Amendment No. 269 introduces an expanded obligation on remote gambling licensees such that they could not provide services to a person until they have provided information to the account holder in writing regarding how their data will be gathered, stored and processed by the licensee. This amendment reflects the spirit of many other earlier amendments regarding data protection privacy and would simply impose an obligation on licensees to be more transparent with their account holders about how their data is used.

Finally, amendment No. 277 seeks to delete certain provisions of the section of the Bill relating to the obligations of licensees not to allow children on their premises. The amendment would delete subsections (3), (4) and (5) in section 172 which provide defences for licensees who are reasonably mistaken regarding the age of a child or young person such that they permit them on the premises. We argue it should be incumbent on the licensee to establish without reasonable doubt that a person has reached the age of majority before they would be permitted onto the premises and it should not be legally permissible for a licensee to argue in their defence that they were simply mistaken.