Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I regard the provisions in section 152 as shameful and indefensible. If, instead of subsection (1), there was a general prohibition on inducements, I would take the section seriously. Instead, subsection (1) states that it is lawful to offer inducements, provided that they comply with ministerial regulations. I wonder why it is necessary to state as a matter of law in this land that it is lawful to offer people inducements to gamble. I have said from the beginning that this legislation is designed to increase gambling. Subsection (1) states:

Subject to subsections (2) and (3), a licensee to whom this Chapter applies may offer the general public a benefit or advantage, the intent or effect of which is, either directly or indirectly, to encourage participation in gambling ...

What purpose is served by that? Why is the Government doing it? Why is the Government stating that it will now be lawful to offer inducements to the public to gamble? Who is the Government trying to protect? Who is it trying to discourage from gambling if it says as a general principle of Irish law that this activity is lawful? The Government does not say it to publicans. It does not say to hand out free drink on Dawson Street or whatever. In fact, it says the opposite, namely that pubs cannot have happy hours and so on, but it does say that in relation to this.

It is disgraceful that this section is in the form it is in. The Minister of State may say that the Government will bring in this or that regulation. That is for the benefit of the legal profession, to find loopholes and ways of circumventing it. What Minister in the Government is saying that they want it to be the law of the land that licensees in gambling can go out, as a general principle, to offer inducements to people to gamble? What common good purpose is served by such a provision? None. It is disgraceful. I said before in this debate that this was a Bill designed to increase and facilitate gambling. Nothing is clearer in that regard than this provision. If somebody says to me that the online establishments in Britain offer free bets and this, that and the other, and we want to give our lads a fair basis on which to compete with them, that, too, is disgraceful.There is no defence for this section, and I completely support the amendments being made to it. I regard it as a matter of complete shame that this section is being enshrined in Irish law. I was Minister for Justice. I fought the gambling interest in Ireland. I fought the people who had the chequebooks and who influenced Government policy against my wishes at the time, who set up poker clubs and the like in Dublin. I have called publicly and consistently to close down the casinos being operated in breach of the 1956 Act, and there has been silence. However, this section shows that for somebody somewhere, money talks in Ireland. The people who want to make money out of the poor, and the fat cats who want to get fatter, have persuaded an Irish Government to say it is an aim of the Irish Government, in law, to allow people to offer inducements to other people to gamble. It is disgraceful. It is repugnant and it should be a matter of shame for these Houses that this section has been put before this House. No defence has been articulated in favour of it. Nobody has said it is necessary to give licensees the right to give inducements to the public. Nobody is saying that.

If there were not a Whip in this House, and there should not be, and there were a free vote, Senator McGahon and the rest of them on the Government benches would say this is an absurd proposition. It will be voted through on a guillotine tonight. Shame on those who have put this into law and who are intent on putting it into law. Why? Whose voice is louder in Ireland? Is it the gambling industry that wants to have the right to offer inducements to the public, or those in Ireland who want to protect people, particularly the most vulnerable people, from being lured back into gambling by having free offers and free bets given to them? I know something about this. I have some experience professionally of the methods and so on of gambling companies. I know the strategies they apply to get people back to play poker, the people who have lapsed and have gone away. I know what they do. I see what they are doing on satellite channels in England. I appeal to the Minister of State to accept the amendments that have been tabled to this. It is common sense. We are not coming from some sort of old-fashioned, conservative and reactionary position. We are simply saying it should never be the case that Ireland should announce, as a general proposition, that people who are licensees in gambling have a general right, unless prevented from doing so by particular regulations, to offer inducements to people to get involved in gambling. Anybody who understands the damage gambling does will see that this is crazy. Why do I not say the heroin pushers have the right to offer free samples? Why do I not say the publicans have the right to offer free samples? Nobody would think of it except in this Bill.