Gabhaim buíochas mór leis an gCathaoirleach. There are two Bills on the Seanad Order Paper on the problem of gambling. One is Senator Wall’s Bill which would ban broadcast and non-broadcast advertising and then there is Senator Ward’s Bill which would ban betting on the national lottery. Both of those are very welcome. It was a happy coincidence that President Higgins took the unusual step at the weekend of issuing a statement reiterating his comments at the Tiglin facility at the end of June, in time for Senator Wall’s Commencement matter, as it were.

Normally I would prefer that the President would be seen to defer verbally to the role of the Legislature on such matters but what he said was important. He talked about the saturation of the media landscape with sports betting advertising and he warned against and criticised the tokenistic small print warnings and invitations to be responsible. He is completely right in that regard.

There are aspects of Senator Wall’s Bill with which I might not fully agree. I would be concerned if the likes of the Racing Post would be able to continue to carry gambling advertising and I might allow a carve-out there. However, I am not sure if I would allow such a carve-out for the sponsorship by gambling organisations of sporting events.

I apologise for interrupting the Senator but when referring to the President he must be aware of the separation of powers between this House and the President.

Indeed I am and I was speaking about the separation of powers even while referring positively to his comments.

Criticism or any reference to the President should be done in a proper manner.

That reference was proper.

In conclusion, the Government has promised legislation on this issue and Senator Wall has welcomed that. He is right to do so but we need to be careful as to how the vested interests might act in the interim. The figure from 2019 is that some €90 million is being raised in gambling advertising revenue which is double what came in the year before. As we know, the betting tax is used to fund the horse racing industry and this industry is very important. We only had to see, however, the saturation of gambling advertising during the recent European soccer championships, with the use of drumbeats with messages of solidarity and crowd happiness to see how seductive and clever this whole industry is at manipulating people’s emotions and feelings. We will need to watch out for the influence that they will seek to play in advance of this promised Government legislation. We will have to watch it like hawks to ensure that it is effective and curbs things like the advertising of sports events by gambling organisations because we have a ballooning problem in this country and we must act in the public interest and combat it.