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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 22 Jun 1926

Vol. 16 No. 14

IN COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. - BETTING BILL, 1926—SECOND STAGE.

I move the Second Reading of this Bill. I do not think that, at this stage of the Bill, I need speak at very great length because most of the points that may require discussion and elaboration can perhaps be more adequately dealt with on the Committee Stage. The purpose and main principle of the Bill is to provide for the licensing of bookmakers and of houses in which bookmaking may be carried on: to make bookmaking, whether on a cash or credit basis, legal in the premises which may be registered for the purpose. The remaining part of the Bill deals with matters of detail except in so far as it provides that totalisators may only be set up and worked with the consent of the Minister for Finance and so far as it enables the Minister for Finance to authorise the Revenue Commissioners to work totalisators directly on behalf of the State. In my Budget statement I think I stated the case for the legalisation of cash betting. That is now illegal, but it is done by all grades of society and by the most reputable people, and it is impossible to enforce the law against it: It seems to us that if a law of that kind cannot be enforced—when the law deals with something that in itself is not wrong, something that can only be objected to if it is done to great excess or carried on in such a way as to lead to abuses growing up alongside it—the proper thing to do is to remove the legal disability, to recognise the existence of this practice and to regulate and control it.

This Bill was only circulated this morning and it is rather quick work to ask for a Second Reading of it. I am not objecting to that. I hope, however, that the Minister will give a fair amount of time before he asks us to take the Committee Stage. It is a rather complicated Bill and I would prophesy that it will lead to a good deal of amendment or attempted amendment on the Committee Stage. I do not know whether it is the Minister's expectation to get this Bill through, but certainly there does not seem to be a great deal of time available.

When I received the Bill this morning the first curiosity I sought to have satisfied was to have a definition of the term bookmaking. I looked down the definition section and I found the very ingenious and, I might say, perhaps, satisfying definition of the word totalisator, but I failed to find any definition of bookmaking. I think a definition of bookmaking, if not necessary, would be interesting. The chief point I want to make is with regard to that portion of the Bill which deals with the licensing of premises. I am a little bit fearful of the effect of the proposals to license premises for bookmaking. The section provides that only on certain grounds which are stated can a certificate of suitability be refused, and on no other grounds whatsoever. I think that is a section which would require very careful scrutiny. I can imagine that under cover of this section bookmakers' premises, quite suitable from the bookmakers' point of view may be established in residential centres, districts where there might be solid public objection. I think that the limited grounds for objection stated in this section may cause a great deal of dissatisfaction and public comment. One of the grounds of objection in the section is with regard to premises that are in close proximity to a place of worship, religious institutions, schools, labour exchange or other similar places or institutions. I hope the Minister will be agreeable to insert a phrase that would cover the more considerable public works, and I think there ought to be also the opportunity to object as to suitability in regard to locality as well as for the specific reasons stated in the section. I do not think it would be desirable that bookmakers' establishments should be allowed to open in the middle of a purely residential area, that a house could be taken and simply furnished as a betting house and that nobody whatever would have a right to object, and that it would not be within the power of the Gárda superintendent to object because of the undesirability of establishing a house for betting in that particular place or locality.

I think that is a distinct flaw in the section. However, it may be said that that is a Committee point, but in view of the shortage of time that will be available if this Bill has to become law before the House rises, I think it is not unreasonable to deal with it at this stage. In the case of the setting up of betting premises which would be an undesirable proposition because of the locality nobody will have the right to object except the Gárda Síochána or the Revenue Commissioners. The objection of the Commissioners will be purely from a revenue cause, so that the sole opposition would come from the superintendent of the Gárda. I think that is a defect. If there is any right of objection in regard to, say, a public house, the same right of objection should apply in the case of a betting house. The Bill, on the whole, might, if one did not begin by admitting the desirability of regulating betting, be subject to a very great deal of opposition, but having conceded that it is desirable to regulate the traffic that exists I think we ought to take into account—we may have to pass many things we are doubtful about—the desirability of discouraging the habit of betting apart from the act of betting.

I think it is desirable we should discourage the setting up of betting houses in districts where they might lead to the inculcation or the extension of the habit of betting as a habit, and where as a consequence people would be encouraged to devote most of their thoughts to racing matters. One does not object to occasional betting, or even to frequent betting, but one does object to the habitual concentration on this feature of public life to which so many people in the country are addicted. I feel it is desirable we should frame this measure in such a fashion that we should, if we can, in some degree reduce the temptation to the following of betting as a habit. I simply repeat my request to the Minister that he will allow ample time for the preparation of amendments to this very complicated measure.

This Bill, we must recognise, is the culmination of a movement to secure a revenue out of betting. I suppose the principle has now been accepted of deriving revenue from this source, and we have gone beyond the stage of arguing the merits of the case from the point of view whether it is desirable or otherwise to set up machinery for collecting the betting tax. There is one aspect of the case that occurs to me, and that is the establishment of a large number of licensed betting houses is going to operate unduly as an inducement in many who, perhaps, in the past have not indulged in this little pastime of betting. This measure will, I believe, tend to an increase in the number of people who will be smitten with this habit. This Bill, with its necessary machinery for collecting the tax, it appears to me, is going to have betting houses run on very much the same lines practically as the public-houses.

The number of public-houses has grown to such considerable dimensions that a movement has been in operation for some time towards reducing it. The danger that I see in connection with this elaborate machinery, and the encouragement which is given to bookmakers to take out licences, is that there is a likelihood of having an excessive number of premises licensed for purposes of betting and these will be recognised, no doubt as a means of revenue, but also as a form of amusement that is likely to spread. I think that the Bill is making it too easy for bookmakers' licences to be taken out and for premises to be licensed, so that if, at a later stage, it is found that the growth of the number of bookmakers and of premises needs consideration as to its reduction, we will be faced with the problem which is before us at present in connection with publichouses. In other words, the Bill is going to establish a State interest in these betting premises and if, later on, the country desires to reduce the number of such premises and the number of bookmakers, it will have grown to be such a menace that it may have more far-reaching effects than we contemplate at present. I think that, at the start at all events, we ought to give as full consideration as possible to the undesirability of licensing an unlimited number of people and of granting licences in respect of places for the purpose of carrying on what has been up to the present an illegal practice. It seems to me that that is the fundamental question involved in the Bill at this initial stage.

If the House accepts the Bill as it stands, without amendments and without restrictions, I think it is going to take a rather sudden plunge in connection with a state of affairs that may, in course of time, show that it has been an undesirable policy. The main difficulty would then be that, having started it, it would be difficult to curtail it. I think that the need for curtailment and restriction in the matter of licences ought to be recognised at the start. The Minister says that there would probably be between 400 and 500 licences, but there may be more. That shows the seriousness of the problem with which we are faced in connection with this Bill. So far as I can see, instead of there being any likelihood of curtailing betting or gambling, or any tendency in that direction, I think we are proceeding to give an incentive in the other direction that will almost immediately be felt through the whole Saorstát. I do not see how, having started with an unrestricted number of licences, we are going to end there. I think that we are going to go much further. In my opinion, it is very desirable for us to lay down some definite restrictions in the Bill which do not seem to be there at present.

I want to say that I feel that the Minister, in introducing this Bill, has done the right thing, because the effect of it is to legalise the establishment of betting premises, which have been known to exist in the past in an illegal form. I have always felt that it was a gross anomaly, and, in fact, an injustice, to have the rich man going to a race meeting and betting as extensively as he wished, and being free from any possibility of prosecution or from being regarded as a man who was doing anything immoral, dishonourable or illegal, whereas the poor man, who could not go to a racecourse, had to resort to illegal means to bet, and was liable to be held up and, in addition, the man who took his bets was liable to be prosecuted. The whole feeling of public opinion, as judged by statements in the reports in the newspapers, was apparently that those who bet on the streets did a grossly immoral act, whereas those who bet on the racecourse did a thing which could be regarded as quite reasonable and almost desirable. For that reason I think that, as an act of simple justice, this Bill is desirable. It legalises betting in premises licensed by the State, even though bets are not recoverable by law.

As I only received the Bill this morning, it is difficult to make a general statement upon its principles. There is, however, one aspect of the Bill which could, perhaps, be dealt with in committee, but which, so far as I can see, is not covered at present. I refer to the possibility that the owners of premises licensed for betting may make use of some forms of entertainment as an attraction to draw people to their betting establishments, and keep them there, so that they may continue making bets. Any movement in that direction should be prevented by a change in the Bill, so as to meet the case. I understand that when betting houses were licensed in the United States it was customary for numbers of people to go into these houses and regard them as lounging places where they could spend the greater part of the day making bets on the different races as shown on a blackboard. If the Bill, as passed, allows anything of that kind in this country it would be very undesirable. So far as I see, the Bill at present makes no allowance for that, except in so far as a licence may be cancelled in the event of a betting-house not being conducted as it should be. Definite provision should be made for that, and loitering on premises should not be tolerated.

Deputy Johnson's point as to the desirability of preventing the setting up of licensed bookmakers' establishments in a purely residential area seems to be a sound one and so far as points like that come to be raised on Committee Stage I would be willing to meet them. I recognise that this is a new matter, that it has not been threshed out in Departments over a period of years as have other matters which have been the subject of Bills and that there will be valuable suggestions offered in the Dáil which could not possibly have been fully considered in the circumstances in the Department. What Deputy Johnson said with reference to giving persons the right to oppose the granting of a licence on appeal and what Deputy Hewat said with regard to allowing large numbers of houses to be licensed, seem rather to hang together. Our point of view was that where premises were not objected to for some specific reason, ordinarily the licence should issue, because we do not want to create a property in the licence. We do not want to be up against the problem that we are up against in regard to the licences for the sale of alcholic liquor, where the existence of the licence in a premises constituted property. We want to have no property created and no saleable interest of any sort in these licences, so that renewal of the licence may be readily refused and the whole regulation of them may be more flexible by far than in the case of premises licensed for the sale of alcholic liquor.

In my view if there is an undue number of houses licensed in the first year and an actual abuse is created because of that undue number, the remedy should be in a future year to increase the licence fee from £20 to some higher figure and so reduce the number of houses. The present position is that we have a number of premises on which betting is carried on illegally and the first step should be to bring them into the open, to have people who carry on betting register themselves and the premises. I daresay there are much more than a thousand premises in which betting is carried on and when we have them out in the open we will know how many there are. If there are too many we ought not to restrict the issue of licences specifically so as to create a property interest in the sale of a licence attached to a particular premises, but rather by a suitable gradation of licence fees to reduce the number to some reasonable limit. I am inclined to think that Deputy Heffernan is also right when he says that in addition to the negative steps that are indicated under Section 8, to prevent the congregation of persons on premises, there might well be some positive provision because while you might prevent crowding by knocking out everybody who allowed it to go on, it probably would be better to put in a section definitely forbidding the setting up of these attractions to draw crowds of people to the house.

Question put and agreed to.

When will the next Stage of the Bill be taken?

I would suggest next Tuesday. I know it is not a very long time but I think it would not be wise to put it later. It will give a fair opportunity to Deputies to put in amendments.

Fixing it for Tuesday means that amendments have to be in by Saturday morning strictly. If the Minister would say that the Committee Stage would be taken on Wednesday, it would give an opportunity to those of us who do not object to working on Sunday to prepare amendments, if necessary, on that day.

I agree to Wednesday.

Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 30th June.
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