Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 33:

In page 56, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following:

“Prohibition of advertising 67. (1) A person shall not advertise gambling, or cause gambling to be advertised.

(2) A person who contravenes subsection (1) is guilty of an offence and is liable—

(a) on summary conviction, to a class A fine, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or both, or

(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €250,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or both.”.

I want to acknowledge Mr. Mark Bradshaw who is in the Public Gallery this evening. He has been a stalwart campaigner in the area of gambling addiction.

The import of amendment No. 33 is to ban gambling advertising, notwithstanding what everybody has been saying heretofore about various different community events and fundraising activities that happen in all of our communities. Gambling is a vice that is misunderstood and there is an underestimation of the pure, debilitating power of gambling addiction on individuals and Irish society. When talking to Mark, he really impressed on me the fact that if you are an alcoholic, you do not really think that your next drink is going to solve your problems; if you have a drug addiction, you do not really think that your next hit is going to solve your problems; but if you are a gambler, you really do think that your next bet is going to solve all your problems. The debt that is being accumulated in people's lives, which is a silent killer, is affecting all facets of Irish life. There are gardaí who are impacted by this, who have debts that they have to pay that affect the way they do their work. I am quite sure there is a politician in here somewhere who has a gambling debt that he or she needs to deal with at some point. It is a silent pressure on them. I am quite sure there are people in sport and other areas of Irish life who have this silent issue in their lives. It is corrosive and nasty.

Recently I downloaded the LiveScore app to my phone. Typically, it is about football. The guy who suggested I download it told me to make sure I said I was under 18 on the app or I would be bombarded with gambling advertisements. Such is the way of our society. Either we do something about it or we do not, or we find loopholes and I have spoken about the charity sector, so I have been part of this debate. In 20 or 30 years' time we are probably going to wonder why we did not do more in this space. I do not think anybody would suggest now that we should have listened more to people who said that curtailing smoking advertising was a bad move or to those who suggest the same about alcohol advertising. I feel the same way about gambling advertising because it is absolutely everywhere. I am a sports fan but I understand that for half of young people, or possibly more, the thrill they get from watching a sports event is not necessarily that their team may score or win. Rather, it is the fact that if a team scores or a team wins or if an individual gets sent off or if there is a yellow card, a corner kick, a throw-in or whatever, they could potentially win money and that is the rush they get. Everything is being monetised. That basic, simple, pure joy that we would have all grown up with in terms of sport is now being monetised by highly inventive, pernicious and quite poisonous gambling companies that will say all the right things in terms of how they want people to learn more about addiction and how important it is to educate young people and all of this sort of stuff.

The role of the Oireachtas is to put curtailments on capitalism and on the market. The market does not have any conscience. It does not really care about the damage it is doing. The market is there to make money and our job is to ensure that we put curtailments on that basic instinct of the market. In that regard, we have to go further and have a blanket ban on the advertising of gambling. Some may feel that is too blunt, too clean and too harsh but not when one considers the silent pain that is happening throughout society. Senator Wall has spoken to me about the fact that for a whole generation of people who are his son's age, this is totally taking over their existence. Everything is online and advertisements are being pushed at them constantly. Also, to be frank, the idea of a 9 p.m. watershed is just not going to work. It is not going to last. We are going to have to go back and review that.

This is what we want to do with this amendment. I appreciate that the Minister of State has other pressures on him. I know the horse racing lobby is very powerful. The industry almost runs this place, with the money it gets every year from the Exchequer, supported by some people in the Opposition. Horse racing gets €100 million per year, all of it coming from bets. The Minister of State will tell me that it does not, but it does. Unquestionably, it gets €100 million that is directly linked to every bet that is put on, as well as the money that the horse and greyhound fund gets, 80% of which is spent on prize money, which is tax free. There is a whole swamp of intrigue here and various interest groups tend to get their way in this whole space. It is our collective responsibility to call a halt and to have a threshold of decency. We need to say that some things are worth more. Certainly, protecting children and protecting wider society is worth more. We must provide a buffer zone between the extremities of the capitalist system and the market and give people the ability to live their lives without this overwhelming pressure being put on them to bet, to continue to bet and to convince them, really subtly, that if they just place one more bet, all of their issues will be resolved. I am sure in time Members of the Oireachtas, members of An Garda Síochána, judges, barristers or others who are held in high esteem, like teachers, will come forward to say they felt this pressure and that it affected how they lived their lives and performed their duties.

That is what our amendment is trying to achieve. I will be interested to hear what the Minister of State has to say.

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