Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Picking up on other Senators’ comments throughout the day, it is important to say there is stuff that does not make sense to me. Senator McGahon talked about pushing people into the black market of gambling. I would like to know what that black market is, how big it is and what it is because I am telling him now that I am surrounded by gamblers, by people who gamble in a healthy way and in an unhealthy way. If it is poker in someone's house that they are organising, that stuff happens, but there is not some big black market that is waiting to swoop people from the gambling industry which has a massive stronghold on gambling in the country. That kind of scaremongering is not okay when we are talking about the harm to people's lives from gambling. Free bets bring people back into gambling and are purposely used to entice people back, whether or not they are offered in a general way. It is like me going into a roomful of smokers, generally offering cigarettes and hoping the person who has an addiction is not somehow inspired to take one when I am generally offering a promotion.

It is also said this is to create competition. The gambling industry is not the same as any other sector and should never be treated the same. If we say they cannot engage in promotion, money off or loyalty cards, it is not like a clothes shop, a shoe shop or getting your hair done. It is not these things that do not cause any harm in your life. We cannot say that if it happens for every other sector, why should it not happen for the gambling sector, because that completely ignores and undermines the harm gambling does. It has no similarities to other industries apart from other addictive behaviours like cigarettes and alcohol, the places we do regulate, as has been said, with regard to happy hours.

This is disingenuously creating fear about black markets and losing customers. I have never heard somebody in my entire life tell me that because Paddy Power did not give them a free bet today, they are never going back there again. When has anyone ever heard such a thing? It does not happen. If River Island does not give me that euro off, I will not say I am not shopping there again because they did not have a discount on this Christmas. These are such ridiculous contributions to make when we are talking about the harm to people's lives. I understand people want to argue in particular directions, but I ask that they remember the harm on the other end. When they are trying to make arguments against particular things, they should do them in a thought-out way that does not just undermine the whole principle of what we are trying to do in protecting people's lives.