Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The first number of these amendments are just technical because the Minister of State is deleting section 67. Amendment No. 34 is more substantive because it gets rid of section 67, on persons advertising relevant gambling activity, in its entirety. The section is being replaced by other sections through a number of amendments.

The amendments are a great improvement on what we have now, and I welcome that. I will address the detail of the amendments when we come to them. I am concerned about the definitions. What we had in this section was a clear understanding of what "advertisement" included. An amendment introduced earlier by the Minister defined "advertisement" and the word "advertise" now includes "advertise by means of an image, sound or text". That is what I am not clear about. Will "advertise" now include, for example, a gambling company putting a post up on social media that includes an image saying, for example, "Cheltenham ... such and such ... back the winner here"?

That is not paid sponsorship but the Minister of State's definition does not include paid sponsorship. Is that categorised as advertisement? Does an advertisement also include the poster in the local shop that would advertise the draw for the local club? I want to clarify what exactly the definition is in regard to advertising as we deal with the deletion of this section, which deals with advertisement of the relevant gaming activity. That is important because this definition is changed away from what was probably a more expansive definition and it is important that we have clarity.

A former parliamentarian spoke to me about Committee Stage and Report Stage of a Bill and said they are very important because sometimes, when things are challenged in court and it is not clear, the discussion that we have on the floor of the House on a Bill provides the courts with the intention behind the legislation. It is important, therefore, that the Minister of State takes some time to explain what his intention is with regard to advertising.

A layperson would understand “advertise” as placing an advertisement in a paper where someone pays money for it, or they place an advertisement on social media and they pay Facebook, or they place an advertisement with a broadcaster and they pay the television or radio station, or it could be on on-demand audiovisual or on-demand sound, such as YouTube, Spotify and so on. My reading of the definition is that “advertise” does necessitate payment and it can be anything, for example, a post on Facebook. If we take one of the main operators in the country and globally, Paddy Power, will a post of Paddy Power on Facebook be advertisement and, therefore, fall into other provisions that arise later in the Bill? Paddy Power sometimes puts up funny things on social media, especially when it is slagging off Rangers. Given it has the company's name there, is that defined as advertisement because the company is advertising its name and it is involved in gambling activity?

On another point, the Government's intention is not to ban gambling. As I said, there is a major problem with addiction and problem gambling but we are not banning gambling. Many people have gambled in the past and have not developed addictions, and it is important to say that because that is not the position we are in at present. As I said, some of these charities and groups are using gambling as a way of fundraising but it is probably not seen by the community as gambling.

I would just make that point about the definition of advertising as we deal with this section.

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