Has the Minister nothing to say on this matter, as a result of the very long series of points made by Deputy O'Malley on a former occasion, and by Deputy MacEntee to-day? I am asking the Minister, is he not prepared to accept that the points made from this side of the House are based on substantial views as to certain points of principle and to the approach to matters of this nature. Can he not give us some enlightenment as to his views or can he not argue against the points made so as to give us an opportunity of making up our minds on the matter?
Greyhound Industry Bill, 1955—Committee Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following amendment:—
SECTION 26.
In Section 26, to add to the section the following new sub-sections:—
() On the coming into operation of this Act and pending the making by him of the Order under sub-section (6) of this section the Minister shall make an Order appointing an independent qualified person as receiver to administer the affairs of the club.
() On the coming into operation of this Act and pending the making by him of the Order under sub-section (6) of this section the Minister shall make an Order appointing an independent qualified person as receiver and manager to carry on the business of the Greyhound and Sporting Press, Limited, for the sole benefit and advantage of the club.
() On the coming into operation of this Act and pending the making by him of the Order under sub-section (6) of this section the Minister shall make an Order appointing an independent qualified person as receiver and manager of Powerstown Park, Limited, to administer the affairs of the club for the sole benefit and advantage of the club.—(Deputy MacEntee.)
The Deputy is apparently not aware that I have already intervened in the debate this morning. Deputy O'Malley spoke for one and a half hours and Deputy MacEntee spoke for two hours on this amendment. I spoke for four and a half minutes, in the course of which I was able to submit to the House arguments which persuaded Deputy MacEntee that his proposal was largely vitiated, when I directed his attention to Article 13 in the constitution of the Irish Coursing Club as scheduled in the Bill. That Article sets out that the property and assets of the club and its subsidiary interests, including Powerstown Park Limited, and the Greyhound and Sporting Press Limited, should be vested in trustees appointed by the club.
That provision much more obviously meets the purpose which Deputy MacEntee appeared to have in view, inasmuch as his amendment cannot come into operation until the Bill is passed into law. His amendment proposes that a receiver should be appointed for the period that might elapse between the enactment of the Bill and its coming into operation—a matter of days. My purpose is to bring the Act into operation at the earliest possible moment so that all these properties would become the subject matter of a trusteeship under the terms of the Act itself, in perpetuity. Deputy MacEntee was constrained to admit that these considerations made it very manifest that there were grave defects in the procedure proposed by him.
He went on to say that if I was now prepared to introduce a short Bill, which he undertook would be hurried through the House, but adding that he could not speak for the Seanad, implementing the terms of this amendment, his opposition to the Bill would be withdrawn. That is a course that I do not think wisdom or prudence would suggest and I would honestly recommend to Deputies that they should have regard to Article 13 of the constitution of the club. They would then see that, in fact, the expeditious passing of this Bill through the House, subject to the amendments I have set down, and subject also to certain other amendments which I promised to bring in on the Report Stage, would achieve the purpose of bringing these properties under trusteeship much more efficiently and expeditiously.
The proposer of the amendment spoke for two hours and Deputy O'Malley spoke for an hour and a half. Both have expressed their intention to continue talking on this amendment as long as the rules of order will permit.
That is not correct. We never made the statement that we intended to continue speaking as long as we were in order.
That seems to be the same thing.
We did not say it.
It has been suggested that I am desirous of showing some discourtesy to the House in failing to meet reasonable arguments. I do not believe that the length of time consumed in meeting reasonable arguments makes the measure of one's courtesy. I was not discourteous to the House but I merely wish to expedite the procedure by saying that there is nothing more I can usefully say on the amendment. I have tried to explain to the best of my ability that all the circumstances that could reasonably be argued on this amendment are amply covered by Article 13 of the schedule of the constitution of the Irish Coursing Club. I do not propose to interfere further in the discussion of this amendment because I believe I have already said everything I can possibly say.
I do not know whether the Minister will be prepared to extend his courtesy to explain to us on this side of the House, with his background of legal knowledge, what is the present position. Paragraph 13, to which the Minister has referred, has not the force of law at the moment, nor will it have the force of law until this Bill is enacted in some form or another. The Minister accepts that?
Neither would the Deputy's amendment.
I agree. But the Minister will remember that, when this amendment was first introduced by Deputy MacEntee, he gave an undertaking to the House that, in his ministerial capacity, he would get from this Irish Coursing Club an undertaking that nothing of their properties would be disturbed until it could be dealt with. That will satisfy us.
May I interrupt the Deputy? The Deputy says "That will satisfy us". May I direct the Deputy's attention to the answer I gave to a parliamentary question put down by Deputy MacEntee on the 8th May. In the course of that answer I said:—
"As to the second part of the question, I am informed by the president of the Irish Coursing Club that any decision to sell or let any property of the club would require the assent of the general body of the members, and that should any such decision be taken at any time, it would be carried into effect by public auction or competitive tender."
What further undertaking can I get from the Irish Coursing Club other than that which I have got and which I have communicated?
The Minister has now come very close to understanding our attitude in this matter——
But I did that on the 8th May.
That is not a satisfactory answer. We want to preserve all the assets for this reorganised body. Then, after they have had their new control board set up, they can deal with the disposal or otherwise of any of the assets for the benefit of the club. The Minister's answer is just this: that the present board of the Irish Coursing Club can decide yes or no——
No.
The only limitation that the Minister gives there is that it will be done by public auction.
No, no. It will require the assent of the general body of the members—of the general body.
We feel that there is a certain amount of apprehension at the moment at the possibility of the assets being in any way disturbed, and we will be prepared to withdraw this amendment if the Minister will give the House an assurance that nothing will be done, that nothing will be disbursed or disposed of, until this becomes an Act. That will help him in bringing this Bill through this House. When the Minister says that we have made up our minds here to obstruct, that is not the case. In his answer to my previous question, the Minister referred to the fact that he had considered each one of the previous amendments in a courteous way and that he had given, in his opinion, a satisfactory answer. I say to the Minister that I do not know what amendment he has accepted yet. I do not know that he has given way on a single amendment proposed by this side of the House.
We asked previously for certain compromises, as between what was in the Bill and what was suggested in the amendment, and the Minister would not accept. I do not think the Minister has even given an inch from the beginning up to the present section we are dealing with, unless the Minister can correct me and show me to the contrary.
I do not think that is true.
I am asking the Minister to tell us now what word of the Bill up to the present he has agreed to change as a result of all the approaches from this side. The Minister in his reply said he was dealing with this amendment, he thought, as satisfactorily as he had dealt with other amendments. Will the Minister at this stage save the House trying to adduce new arguments and new reasons, other than those already given, to induce him to accept the sense of what is in this amendment or in this series of amendments; or would he suggest even some counter-suggestion to the amendments to meet the point we have? If one reads what has emerged from the last meeting of this body, it is quite clear that a certain element were seriously prepared to consider the acceptance of an offer——
What was the date of this last meeting?
The 2nd May, 1956.
My answer was on the 8th May—six days later.
I know it was. But the position is that the Minister must admit that we have no statutory control of this body and the main purpose behind this Bill is to bring about statutory control. What is to stop him saying "all right"? There has been an inquiry. The investigation showed that there were reasonable grounds for requiring legislation of this kind because the industry is of national importance. It is not a small little private industry in the hands of a few people. There are certain agreements which have to be honoured, which were made in good faith by both sides in the past, but if there is a particular beneficiary of one of those agreements who now wishes to change his own circumstances, then the board should be protected to the extent of its assets not being impaired in any way by certain changes which are contemplated.
I beg the Minister just to say that he will indicate to these people that no disposal, by public auction or otherwise, of any of the assets will be countenanced by him and that such disposal can only take place when this Bill becomes an Act. If he says that, we will be all quite satisfied. We all meet different sections of the public. The Minister will probably hear from people who agree with his point of view in the matter; we will hear from the persons who are in some disagreement with the point of view expressed by him. If you put the two together, is it not wiser in the long run to say: "This is the proper way of dealing with it; I will give you that undertaking and we will all be happy about the section"?
It is perfectly easy for me to get up and say all sorts of extravagant things in Dáil Éireann——
It would not be the first time.
——and give extravagant undertakings. But as the Deputy knows perfectly well, I have no power to ensure that what I say should be done. I take the view, and I imagine it would be shared by any reasonable person, that there should not be any change in the status quo while this Bill is under consideration by Oireachtas Éireann. I think the communication which I made to the Chairman of the Irish Coursing Club and the reply which he made to me indicate that perfectly clearly. But there is no use in my misleading Dáil Éireann by telling them because I have said something, that means that I can control what I have no power to control.
I addressed an inquiry to the person and induced him to reply to me. I then gave a reply to Deputy MacEntee here in the House and here are the terms of my reply:—
"I have, however, made inquiries from the president of the Irish Coursing Club, who informs me that while offers to buy or lease property belonging to the club have been received from time to time over the years, no decision has, in fact, been made by the club as suggested in the first part of the question. As to the second part of the question, I am informed by the president of the Irish Coursing Club that any decision to sell or let any property of the club would require the assent of the general body of the members, and that should any such decision be taken at any time, it would be carried into effect by public auction or competitive tender."
I cannot place any restraint upon them, but it has been made perfectly manifest by me that there should not be any change in the status quo while the Bill is pending. I cannot give the House an undertaking that there will not be a change in the status quo, because it is not in my power to give such an undertaking. However, a different situation arises when the Bill passes and if Deputies would get together and get the Bill through promptly all their anxieties would be allayed at once. It is this eternal delay of the Bill that maintains this situation. This Bill has been under discussion now for eight months and during all that time there has been no change in the status quo.
Six days out of eight months.
The Bill has been before the House for that period. If the Deputies' apprehensions were well founded would it not be likely that a change would have taken place in that long period? It has not taken place, and the chairman of the club has put himself on record in these terms to me. He knows my views. If the Deputies are sincere in their desire to implement these amendments, the way to do it is to pass this Bill. The Deputy's amendment provides a security for the period that will elapse between the enactment of the Bill and the putting of it into operation. Article 13 of the Schedule to the Bill provides security in perpetuity. If the Deputies want that security, we can find a common mind and make progress, but if they are simply here to obstruct, then I must excuse myself from further contribution on an amendment on which I think I have spoken already repetitiously in an effort to meet the points made by each Deputy who has risen.
I rise to speak only because my name was mentioned very considerably in the course of the morning's debate. I want to agree with what the Minister has said about the Bill being before the House since last November. Deputy O'Malley said we have had only six days to consider it. That was nearly twice the period it took us to consider the Finance Bill, a much more important measure. What is more important, however, is that this commission reported to Deputy's Briscoe's Party, to Deputy MacEntee's Party, to Deputy O'Malley's Party in 1952, that for two and a half years after that this ex-Minister for Finance did not take any action on it, and that although he did not, Powerstown Park was not sold to some foreigner or somebody else. The Deputy's Party did not do anything about it because I think they felt it was not quite as worrying a matter then as it apparently is now. I think the hypocrisy of Deputy MacEntee is unveiled by the fact that, for two and a half years as Minister for Finance, he had this report before him, disclosing these various discrepancies in the administration of the affairs of this club, and he did nothing about them. This Government came into office and we do something about them. It is quite obvious the attitude of Deputy MacEntee is "phoney" and dishonest and that Deputy MacEntee does not give a damn whether or not this Bill was ever introduced. He is now using it as a vehicle to express his personal hatred against individuals and I do not think that any king of the underworld in New York——
On a point of order, is it in order for Deputy Barry to suggest that Deputy MacEntee was manifesting his personal hatred against an individual outside this House through the channels of this House while you, Sir, were in the chair.
The substance of what Deputy MacEntee said was extremely personal——
It would have been much better if the words were not used.
I withdraw them then.
Deputy Barry should address himself to the amendment and not to the alleged motives behind the amendment.
I must say that I think the amendments are so designed that they can provide a vehicle for attack on the persons named by Deputy MacEntee here to-day. I think Deputy MacEntee could have dealt with this matter while he was Minister for Finance. I agree with the Minister that there is no danger whatever of anything happening to the assests of this organisation.
We are getting into a most extraordinary series of attitudes.
I have been here four hours.
I have been engaged on other matters. Deputy Barry suggests that inherent in these amendments are attacks on persons outside this House. Surely, Sir, you have not allowed on the Order Paper an amendment which could bear that interpretation.
The Deputy must come to the terms of the amendment now.
I am dealing with it. Deputy Barry states quite categorically that this amendment is designed to do damage outside to somebody in his personal capacity.
That was done here to-day.
The Ceann Comhairle is the custodian of order in this House and I am quite certain the Ceann Comhairle would not allow such an approach as that described by Deputy Barry. We are at one in so far as the Minister agrees that neither he nor the House has any statutory power to enforce anything on the Irish Coursing Club executive at the moment. We all accept that. There is, however, proof before the House that while this Bill was going through there was in contemplation a deal to dispose of certain of the resources of this club.
What we are asking the Minister to do, and we are quite prepared to withdraw the amendment if he gives us this undertaking, is to write a letter to this body saying it would be his wish that they would not disturb any of these assets until the Bill becomes an Act. We would be quite satisfied with that because we believe that because of the position the Minister occupies in the Government a request made by him would be honoured by these people. Perhaps we are being a bit obstinate in not being satisfied with the reply to Deputy MacEntee's question which the Minister read out. However, if the Minister agrees to request these people to maintain the status quo we will immediately withdraw this amendment and more progress will be made. We have grounds for our attitude. As reported in the Sporting Press of May 17th, which is after the date of the question to which the Minister referred, one of the members of the executive is quoted as saying: “They had got a competent firm of valuers to give the valuation as to the value of the property. The standing committee”—not as a result of a general meeting——
Is the Deputy genuine in this?
Yes.
If he is, I would like to meet him. I have stated here that, in my judgment, there should be no change in the status quo in regard to these assets pending the disposition by Oireachtas Éireann of this Bill. The propriety of my writing to any citizen of the State purporting to control the disposition of this property in my official capacity is open to question when I have no legislative function, but I would be prepared to meet the Deputy just to test whether we are ad idem in this matter at all by saying I would undertake to direct the attention of the executive of the Irish Coursing Club to the text of the debate in the course of which these references have been made.
And the Minister's own words?
Yes.
Very well, we shall withdraw the amendment.
If that had been said at 10.30 this morning we would have been saved a great deal of time.
I am pleased the Minister has taken that line and, as evidence of the good faith we wish to show, the amendments are withdrawn.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sections 26 and 27 agreed to.
SECTION 28.
I move amendment No. 17:—
In sub-section (1), line 3, before ", unless" to insert "or in the precincts thereof".
These are purely drafting amendments.
Amendments Nos. 18, 19 and 23 are consequential.
Amendment agreed to.
Section, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 29.
I move amendment No. 18:—
In sub-section (1), line 26, to delete "authorised coursing meetings" and substitute "at authorised coursing meetings and in the precincts thereof".
This is also a drafting amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 29, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
On the section, may I say that on the Second Stage I think it was drawn to the Minister's attention that if a bookmaker was refused a licence he should appeal to the body who refused him. That is dealt with in Section 29 (3), which states:—
"Where the board proposes to refuse an application for a course-betting permit, or to suspend or revoke a course-betting permit, the board shall serve notice of the proposal on the applicant or holder and shall, if any representations are made in writing by the applicant or holder within seven days, consider the representation."
On the Second Stage it was suggested that such an aggrieved bookmaker should have an appeal to a district justice or some other body outside the board.
Could I assist the Deputy? These are the sections on which I wish to get the issues in order to indicate the atmosphere of sweet reasonableness that could prevail if we only approached these matters in a co-operative way. I took note of the representations that were made on various sides of the House that where a man's livelihood was in issue, while disciplinary action might be necessary, he ought to have the right where he felt his livelihood was at stake, to go to some outside person so that both parties, the bookmaker and the disciplinary body, would appear before him.
I notice the suggestion as regards the district justice or a Circuit Court judge. I think that, on the whole, it is better to arrange that if an appeal of this kind is brought, we should facilitate the bookmaker to have such an appeal, that we should set up an ad hoc tribunal to deal with each case which should consist of an independent person, preferably with legal experience, possibly assisted by assessors. I will undertake to bring in an amendment on the Report Stage which will set out the scheme which I think is acceptable to the Bookmakers' Association, giving them access of appeal. However, it is expedient to provide that where a bookmaker meets with a condemnation of this kind and his licence is withdrawn and he wants to make an appeal and have a special ad hoc tribunal set up to hear that appeal, he should be required to make a substantial deposit so that if his appeal is determined to be wholly frivolous he will be penalised to that extent.
When that proposal first occurred to my mind in order to avoid fictitious appeals being made, I felt it might be a great hardship on small bookmakers with limited resources. Then it occurred to me that small bookmakers or bookmakers of any standing are members of their association and if a small bookmaker comes to his association and says: "They have given me the knock and I have not had a fair do; I want to make an appeal", if he can satisfy his colleagues that he has any kind of a fighting chance the organisation which disposes of adequate resources will put up the stake for him. The only way of preventing a man making a wholly irrational appeal, when he actually deserves the censure which was laid upon him is to provide that he shall make a deposit, which he will be in danger of losing if his appeal is rejected. If the appeal is successful, he will of course get his deposit back.
There may be a borderline case in which the Bookmakers' Association may think the appeal was justified and yet the competent tribunal may determine the authority was right in what they did in which event the Bookmakers' Association would have to bear the loss of the deposit. I think we ought to put in a proviso to prevent wholly irrational appeals being made. The proviso I propose to the House will be directed to that end, to avoid the submission of wholly improper appeals.
I think what the Minister has said in principle is very good. I suppose we can discuss the question when the amendment is moved. I agree with the Minister that, if the appeal were to be made by the individual bookmaker, we might have what he quite properly describes as frivolous or fictitious appeals and therefore a deposit would be necessary, a deposit which would become forfeit. The latter part of his suggestion, however, appeals to me much more. The bookmakers have an association and, if the association, as a trade union body, appeals on behalf of its members, I do not think a deposit should then be necessary. What form of court the Minister has in mind I do not know. That is something to be considered. It might be possible for us to suggest, however, or for the Minister to consider, that, apart from those he has mentioned, there should be some representative of the Bookmakers' Association on that ad hoc body.
I would not exclude the possibility of two assessors.
And one might be from the bookmakers' side. I regret I have to go away, but I make this plea to the Minister. I ask him to continue this atmosphere of sweet reasonableness because we shall get on much faster and understand each other better. We shall make more progress.
But have I not been urging the Deputy's side of the House to do just that?
I ask him to use his influence with Deputy A. Barry and prevail on Deputy Barry to empty his bottle of vinegar out and throw the bottle away.
Does the Deputy not observe the very significant fact that Deputy MacEntee is taking his lunch?
Deputy MacEntee's lunch is well over. On Deputy O'Malley's suggestion, the Minister has expressed a very reasonable view as to what is going on inside his head. That is very satisfactory and we are very pleased. May the atmosphere continue so henceforth.
Section put and agreed to.
SECTION 30.
I move amendment No. 19:—
In sub-section (1), line 44, to delete "authorised coursing meeting" and substitute "at any authorised coursing meeting or in the precincts thereof".
This is consequential on amendment No. 17.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 30, as amended, agreed to.
Section 31 agreed to.
SECTION 32.
Amendment No. 20 not moved.
I move amendment No. 21 on behalf of Deputy Walsh:—
In sub-section (1) to add at the end of the sub-section:—
"whether it be determined in his favour or not. If it be determined in favour of the backer the bookmaker shall pay to the backer the amount accruing to the backer less the amount of the levy at the prescribed rate."
Perhaps I could simplify this. I would ask the Deputy not to move this amendment because I do not think the amendment is necessary. The amendment tabled by Deputy Walsh seeks to give statutory effect to the system actually in operation at present in connection with the collection of the levy on horse racing bets. The system, in fact, operates at the moment and the insertion of this amendment is not really necessary to achieve the purpose Deputy Walsh has in mind. If, however, Deputy Walsh on further reflection feels that he wants to have the amendment again, would the Chair permit the amendment to be tabled on the Report Stage?
If the Deputy wishes to withdraw it now, it may be put down again on the Report Stage.
I accept the Minister's explanation and I withdraw the amendment accordingly.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed: "That Section 32 stand part of the Bill."
On the section, I would like to get some clarification and so, I am sure, would other interested parties in connection with the rate of levy. I am not interested as to whether the levy is 2½ per cent. or 1¾ per cent. I am talking now of the actual bet. On the Second Stage the Minister stated that if a punter puts 2/6 on a dog and the punter loses, the bookmaker will have to pay the appropriate levy on the half-crown. If, however, the punter wins at four to one he should get 12/6, but the bookmaker will deduct tax on that 12/6. The Minister went further and pointed out that the bookmaker gains nothing at all, good, bad or indifferent. This question of levies is causing controversy up and down the country. The Minister may have seen the very long correspondence in the Press in relation to this levy. If I go into a bookmaker's office to-morrow and lose £1 the bookmaker will pay the tax on that £1. If the horse wins at four to one I should get £5; but the bookmaker has the audacity to stop tax on that £5 whereas, under the Act, the bet is the original stake and not the winnings and all the bookmaker should do is stop tax on the stake.
Surely the tax should be stopped on the betting pool?
It is not a question of what I think, or Deputy Barry thinks. It is the law of the land. The law states that a bet is a stake levied at a hazard or risk and that the bet shall be taxed. It was first of all 2½ per cent.; then it was increased to 5 per cent., then to 7½ per cent. and now it is, I think, 10 per cent.
I see the Deputy's point. I am not giving him a short answer but I think it is often a prudent thing to let well alone. Does the Deputy follow me? The fact is that under the horse betting situation nobody has ever challenged it; they have accepted it as a good working arrangement. That seems to be a fairly sporting approach on the matter. If it were challenged, it would have to be clarified. I think what Deputy Walsh had in mind was to do just what Deputy O'Malley is talking about, to clarify the situation in his amendment No. 21, which the Deputy has withdrawn. I think it is better to leave things as they are and to allow the present system to function unless and until some enterprising soul can go into court and establish the proposition that Deputy O'Malley advances here. I think it right to say that if anybody did so succeed it would be necessary to come to Dáil Éireann and pass legislation in the terms of Deputy Walsh's amendment.
I advised the withdrawal of Deputy Walsh's amendment because I am a great believer in leaving well alone. However, I agree with Deputy O'Malley that if some enterprising soul does go to court and gets a finding on the lines that he apprehends then we will have to come in and legislate on the lines of Deputy Walsh's amendment. If the view were very strongly expressed to me that we ought to do that now, I could bring in an amendment on the Report Stage. I think there are some slight, technical drafting details which require to be considered in the amendment submitted by Deputy Walsh, but I could bring in an amendment on those lines to give effect to that principle if the House thought that desirable, but my recommendation would be to leave well alone, and if a difficulty of that kind materialises hereafter, we are all agreed on what we think ought to be done. We can then bring in a short, amending Bill to deal, not only with greyhound racing, but with horse racing also, and make abundantly clear what is at present generally presumed to be the case, even though the doubt to which Deputy O'Malley refers may, in fact, be justified.
I do not want to press unduly on this matter but there is no question of doubt in my mind. Bookmakers, since 1926 on, have retained moneys to pay the Revenue Commissioners by stopping tax from winnings. If the Minister studies the 1926 Act— I think it is Section 14—he will see there that a levy can be imposed only on the bets and the bookmakers certainly have had some "cheek" to have down through the years made deductions from winnings and stakes. The stake is the only taxable thing. I would suggest to the Minister that a small amendment on the Report Stage would cover everything and if he wants to authorise bookmakers to tax winnings and stakes, let him say it here because the people who go to greyhound races are a most peculiar crowd——
It was the Deputy who said that.
I mean peculiar in so far as they would not wait for the District Court, the Circuit Court or the High Court to challenge a book-maker's ruling; they would have their own methods. If they had a £1 bet on a six-to-one winner they would demand that the tax be deducted on the £1 and that the £6 winnings be paid in toto. The Minister can visualise what would happen.
I think if the Deputy arranges with Deputy Walsh to put his amendment down again on the Report Stage, we can settle that matter.
Will the Minister agree to bring in an amendment on the Report Stage?
I will. I may be in a position to recommend to Deputy Walsh that our two amendments be withdrawn but we can look into them on the Report Stage.
There is another point on this section concerning the levy. I and speakers on both sides of the House have, I think, maintained that the levy is not necessary at all. It is quite obvious that the money for this new board must come from somewhere. It cannot come out of the air, and I presume the Government has no money to give them as they have not got money for more necessary things. I want to point out that no one knows apparently how the rate is to be calculated, whether it will be 2½ per cent. or 1¼ per cent. Personally, I would rather see the levy, if there has to be a levy, fixed at 2½ per cent. because it would be very difficult to collect 1¼ per cent., particularly from the small betters. I think the Minister has no knowledge at the present time of what exactly the levy will be. He says in sub-section (1) of Section 32:—
"Every person who, as a licensed bookmaker, enters into a course bet on or after the commencement of this section shall pay to the board a levy calculated at the rate of the prescribed percentage for the time being of the amount of the course bet."
I would like to point out that the finances of the control board were gone into in great detail by the advisory committee and I agree that the section put down by the Minister is but carrying out more or less the recommendation of the advisory committee, but it is on the actual figures that I disagree.
Paragraph 153 in the advisory committee's report pointed out that the probable approximate administrative expenses of the control board in its first year of operation would total some £23,000, that is, allowing for the salary of the chairman, £2,500 a year; the salary of the secretary, £1,200, and including travelling expenses and salaries of stipendiary stewards and other expenses. That sum of £23,000 in the first year is for administrative expenses alone. Then they go on to say that the fees payable by licensed track officials and licensed track owners would reduce that amount to a total of £22,000. They go on from there and give a most extraordinary figure. This is the most contentious section of the whole Bill, this question of the levy. Without reference to the question at all on this particular section, the Racing Board for 1953, 1954 and 1955 have shown that the moneys which have accrued——
Could the Deputy help me? What does the Deputy suggest?
I am suggesting first of all that there is no necessity for the levy at the present time. The Minister in reply to that said a control board must be set up to get things going, to pay the initial cost of £40,000 or £50,000 for the tote at Harold's Cross, at Shelbourne Park and eventually at Cork and Limerick. We will have to get money from somewhere and I am suggesting to the Minister that the imposition of the levy on the bookmaker is not necessary. I think I can show him that. I agree that the Minister is not imposing the levy; he is not coming in here to-day to impose a levy of 2½ or 1¼ per cent. He is just giving authority to the board to collect a levy which the board will prescribe at a certain rate. The Minister is giving the board that authority and I am simply saying to the Minister that the levy to be collected from the bookmakers could, indeed, be done without.
The reason I am trying to force the Minister on this point is that the figures, as presented by the Racing Board, are indicative of the trend of betting in this country. We have the figures given by the Racing Board for 1953, 1954 and 1955 both as regards the levy from the bookmakers and the contribution from the tote. In 1953 the levy from the bookmakers amounted to £153,000. In 1954 that contribution fell to £144,000 and the levy paid in 1955 fell again to £134,000. In three years the contribution from the bookmakers to the Racing Board was down by about £20,000.
Taking the contribution from the tote for the same period—the contribution from the tote to the Racing Board in 1953 was £180,000. In 1954 it was £185,000 and in 1955 it was more or less static. What I am trying to point out is that the trend of betting and the turnover of the bookmakers is on the downward grade. They are not in a position to contribute any more. There is no question or doubt about it but that these individuals, and the Minister is more friendly with some of them than I am, are being slowly but surely squeezed out of their profession.
Usually a bookmaker bets at horse races and dog races and he also has a starting price office. The Minister for Finance has already taken care of the starting price office and the course betting and now the Minister for Agriculture, to give him the final hammer, is dealing with him on the greyhound track. That is another example of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. The Minister, some years ago, in this House, paid a tribute to the bookmakers of this country and said that, if it were not for them, horse racing in the country generally would not have developed as it did. He then spoke very much in favour of helping this section of the community.
I am still on the point that I am asking the Minister to withdraw this section in its entirety because the figures published in the report in 1952 were quite amazing. I have given figures for 1953, 1954 and 1955, which show that betting with the bookmakers is on the downward grade. The figures given in the report in paragraph 155 state that the estimated turnover from the two major Dublin racing tracks, that is, Shelbourne Park and Harold's Cross, in a normal racing season in which upwards of 1,600 races are run, is somewhat in the region of £2,500,000.
From what is the Deputy quoting?
From paragraph 155 of the advisory committee's report. They state that on the two Dublin tracks £2,500,000 was bet one year. I do not want to disagree with the advisory committee on this score but there are people on both sides of this House who are conversant with Shelbourne Park and Harold's Cross. I have discussed this matter with them and they cannot make out where this figure of £2,500,000 is obtained. In Shelbourne Park, there are generally five or six bookmakers who hold fairly big money and five or six others who hold average-sized money. The remainder are small men. If the Minister for Agriculture went to them with a £5 note on a two-to-one shot it would be wiped out immediately. They could not get the duster quick enough. To say that £2,500,000 is bet in Shelbourne Park and Harold's Cross combined in a single racing season is going beyond the beyonds. However, this is the figure used by the advisory committee and the figure which will be used by the board to calculate the revenue they will get.
Are we proceeding on the basis of a quarter of an hour ago?
What was that?
Trying to get on with the job.
Yes, we are.
I do not want to interrupt what Deputy O'Malley is saying but, with regard to the volume of betting, the only indication I can have is the report of the committee. The last time I was at Shelbourne Park was about 1932 and it would be ludicrous for me to represent to the House that I have any better or later information than is made available in that report. As far as I am concerned, it is purely an estimate. That estimate was based on the unsworn evidence given to the committee and in many cases it might be of a rather loose nature. Men were giving their opinions at large without pretending that they were testifying on oath.
Deputy O'Malley says that, if I act on the basis of that testimony, I may unwittingly crush some of the smaller bookmakers but I think that Deputy O'Malley is overlooking the fact that we were all in agreement with amendment No. 21 in the name of Deputy Tom Walsh which has been withdrawn with the right to reintroduce it on the Report Stage. That amendment provides that the small and the large bookmaker will levy both on the winnings of the punter and on the stake which he retains in a losing bet. The effect of that is that neither the small nor the large bookmaker, taking their general experience, will have any difference in the contributions which they will make. They will recover through the levy on the winning bet what they have paid out on the losing bet.
The punter pays it as well.
That is true. The whole purpose of this legislation is to draw off the pool of betting, winning or losing, a sum which shall be devoted, not to the Exchequer, but to the improvement of the sport itself. That principle seems to have had success in horse racing and it is the aim of the horse-racing people in England, who say it is the only salvation of horse racing there. That is the principle of the whole legislation—that there should be drawn off the pool of betting something sufficient to improve the stakes and to improve the amenities of the greyhound industry in this country. But it is not going to close the small bookmaker. The bookmakers, small and large, should break about even. I do not say that in every case he breaks absolutely even but the terms of Deputy Walsh's amendment operate to ensure that he makes a substantial contribution in any case.
It is to be borne in mind that, in asking the bookmakers, for a period at least, to act as the collecting agents of this levy, they are not doing it for nothing because they will benefit by the improvement of the greyhound racing industry. Were the greyhound industry here to continue to deteriorate, their livelihood would disappear. There is no body of men who will benefit more, in proportion to their interest in the industry as a whole, than the bookmakers will benefit under this legislation. This legislation is calculated, we hope, to put greyhound racing on a basis which will ensure to the honest bookmaker a steady honest livelihood. We all know that, were legislation of this kind not enacted, there is an imminent danger of a number of tracks closing down in the country, thus depriving the bookmakers of a legitimate source of income.
Here is a fact. I have no better estimate than the estimate in the report of the total volume of betting and the consequent probable yield of a levy. But I think the House knows that, in our judgment, it is not impossible that, after an introductory period, it will transpire that the levy on the tote will itself be sufficient to provide the revenue and that we can then drop the levy on the bookmakers altogether. If it does transpire that the levy on the tote will yield a sufficient revenue to finance the necessary improvement in greyhound racing, I do not doubt that the board will drop the levy on the bookmakers. But in order to get it going, we have to have the levy on the bookmakers and the tote in the initial stages.
I think I did say at some stage that, in an effort to reassure the bookmakers that their circumstances were borne closely in mind, I thought 1¼ per cent. should be the maximum levy upon them, but to tell the truth, I have detected, even among certain elements in the bookmaking profession, a tendency to express the same view as Deputy O'Malley that, if there is a levy on the bookmakers at all, it is better to have it 2½ per cent. than 1¼ per cent. But, as at present advised, I have said that I agree that 1¼ per cent. would be the limit of the levy to be made on them, and unless it were made clear to me that the bookmakers as a body would prefer to see a levy of 2½ per cent., I think I should be bound to make it 1¼ per cent.
If the levy on the bookmakers were made 2½ per cent. ab initio it would probably bring nearer the day when the levy on the bookmakers could be disposed of altogether If we make it 1¼ per cent. ab initio, we might have to keep it on for five, six or seven years, while the levy on the tote was coming to meet our total requirements. When I say “total requirements” I mean the total requirements of the board. If we had the levy of 2½ per cent. on the bookmakers ab initio, it might be possible to drop the levy on the bookmakers altogether at the end of three or four years. But if the bookmakers adhere to the view that, in all the circumstances, they would prefer it would not be left at a rate higher than 1¼ per cent., I think I would feel bound to say “let it be no higher than that,” even though that involves maintaining it for a longer period than would be the case otherwise.
As far as the estimate is concerned, there is no use arguing with me about it. While I may respect Deputy O'Malley's opinion, I am not qualified to weigh up the opinion of the Deputy beside the report. I think I must stand over the estimate given to me by the committee which deliberated these matters with all the information before them and offered that estimate to me. No matter how much I respect the opinion of individual Deputies, I cannot set it against the estimate that is here provided.
I was not here when the Minister made his statement that he was to some extent meeting our point of view in relation to the amendment No. 16a. I would just like to say I am grateful to the Minister for meeting us in that way. I hope his letter will be fully effective to prevent what we have apprehended.
The main reason I rose on this section is that I am in some difficulty about the drafting of it. Maybe my recollection is at fault, but I do not remember any section which empowers any person to fix a levy at a prescribed amount. I would be very grateful if the Minister could clear up that difficulty for me. I do see that a levy calculated on the rate of the prescribed percentage for the time being is mentioned, but I have not been able to trace any provision in the Bill, in the few minutes I have had to refresh myself on it, whereby any person may fix a levy at a prescribed amount. It is a point which I had in mind before. Perhaps if the Minister could help me in that regard, I might be able to go further.
I think it is one of these things which come into this accommodating Section 2—the definition section. Would the Deputy look at line 33?
Quite frankly, I did not look for it among the definitions.
It is one of the things that come in that way. Would the Deputy look at line 33, page 4?
I can see that the word "levy" is defined——
No, "prescribed."
——meaning a levy payable——
If the Deputy will look at line 33, he will see that "prescribed" means——
Yes, that clarifies the situation as far as I am concerned. Before you put that section, Sir, I would like to say that this is a matter which has developed since the last Budget and I do not know how the Minister is going to deal with it. It has given birth to some apprehension among those who were hoping this Bill would be of great benefit to the greyhound breeding industry. What was new to us when this Bill came up for discussion earlier was the fact that in the recent Finance Bill the Minister for Finance would impose a stamp duty and also a levy.
Might I interrupt the Deputy in order, possibly, to save trouble? I approached the Minister for Finance on that matter and he authorised me to communicate the following letter to the House. Does it meet the Deputy's convenience that I should mention it now?
It might be advisable.
This is the letter:—
"I have your letter of the 29th instant about the Greyhound Industry Bill and the question whether you can, if necessary, make a statement that a stamp duty is not contemplated in relation to the receipts of the proposed board for the greyhound industry.
"As you know it would not be possible for me to give any assurance which would fetter the discretion of myself, or of any successor Minister for Finance, in relation to a matter of taxation. What can be said, however, is that there is no present intention of imposing on the Greyhound Board a stamp duty similar to that which is being charged on the receipts of the Racing Board under the provisions of the Finance Bill this year. I hope that this will suffice for your purposes."
I think the Deputy, with his experience, will agree that, subject to the reservations which every Minister for Finance must make on his own behalf and on behalf of his successors, that is as exhaustive an undertaking as can be given.
I am glad the Minister has been good enough to disclose it to the House and I am sure that if any succeeding Minister has the hardihood to come to the House and impose a levy later, this will be adverted to. I think it is as substantial a guarantee as can be given in the circumstances. There is another circumstance in connection with this industry about which Deputy O'Malley made reference and which we should all keep in mind. That is that the business of bookmaking on the greyhound tracks is carried on mainly by very small men. I do not know how they are going to be protected against, say, the possibility that the larger men who can work on much smaller margins of profit may forgo collecting the levy.
It will be made a condition of their licences that they must collect it. That is the practice of the Racing Board.
I hope it will be a matter that will be borne in mind by the board set up under this Bill. I wish to express the very strong desire and hope that the new board will be meticulous in ensuring that this particular condition will be honoured.
On the section, we have objected to the levy being imposed at all. I do not want to bore the House. The Minister has stated it is a question for the board to say whether or not a levy will be imposed. In the light of circumstances, it appears a levy is highly necessary. There are some observations I should like to bring to the Minister's notice. I hope that between now and the Report Stage he will reconsider certain matters in connection with betting through bookmakers. In the report of the Greyhound Advisory Committee, at paragraph 156, it is stated that the bookmakers came along to give evidence and objected to the totalisator. Of course they also objected to the levy, but they objected strongly to the totalisator on the grounds that it would cause the bookmakers to lose their livelihood. It is admitted by the advisory committee that 20 per cent. of the people who had been betting with the bookmakers were switching to the totalisator.
On the other hand, there will be increased attendances at greyhound tracks, but the overall point to bear in mind is that not alone will the bookmakers be hit by the totalisator but now they have to face competition from the totalisator and to pay this levy imposed in the recent Budget. I say in all seriousness that, in view of the present plight in which bookmakers here find themselves, the Minister should omit this section altogether. I do not give a snap of my fingers for the bookmakers; they have the same rights as any other body in the country, but we should learn from what happened in Britain.
The punitive taxation imposed on greyhound racing by successive British Chancellors of the Exchequer has resulted in crippling the industry over there. That has naturally shown itself in the prices obtainable for dogs. The days of the £2,500 dogs have gone; a good dog now averages between £150 and £200. If the Minister looks at today's newspapers he will find that the Greyhound Racing Association shares, which were up to about 45/- each, are now quoted at 1/1. At greyhound tracks like White City, Clapham, Westham, there were up to 70 or 80 bookmakers operating. Now there are only four and they are a combine. They have been completely wiped out.
Therefore, I say to the Minister that he would want to give a little more time to this question. This is not going to be as handy as it was for the Racing Board; it will not run on such smooth, oiled wheels. You will have two sections of betting for greyhound tracks; you will have the bookmakers and the totalisator. The Minister knows well that the totalisator, as such, will be very different from that operating at horse-racing meetings. You will have only six dogs in every race. The ordinary person who goes to a horse-race meeting has up to 28 or 30 runners in each race. Eventually, you will have the show system, the one, two, three forecast. However, that will take time and, in the meantime, you will have the greatest difficulty in administering it from the point of view of the board's financial requirements. I do not want to go over old ground again. Deputy MacEntee referred after Christmas to the point of getting some of the assets of the Irish Coursing Club for the first year, the ab initio period. If the board got some of the assets of the club for the first year there would be no necessity for imposing this levy.
I must say that if it is proposed to collect the levy in the immediate future we might as well face the fact that bookmakers, as such, will be completely shut out of the game altogether. We all know that, even since the last racing season, the attendances at the Dublin tracks have never been smaller, even though the advisory committee, who took evidence in 1951, referred to the fantastic percentages that were being made in those days. That, however, was 1951 and the advisory committee were going on the surmise that things would get better. I read out statistics to show that the takings are down by £20,000 in three years. Naturally the board will come along and impose this levy, but I think that after a year or two there might not be any necessity to keep the levy on.
Does anyone in his common sense not know that if we have a greyhound racing control board set up in this country with the Irish Coursing Club having a controlling interest in it they will not remove that levy? They will say: "We cannot remove it because we want to do this, that or the other; we want to make improvements in Cork, Limerick, or elsewhere. Therefore we cannot afford to remove the levy." If the Minister under this section empowers the board to impose a levy on bookmakers the bookmakers can rest assured that the levy will never come off. The same theorising no doubt took place in 1926 when the first levy on licensed bookmakers was imposed in this country. It was then 2½ per cent. which was raised to 5 per cent. and then 7 per cent. Now since the 10th July, it is 10 per cent.
It was reduced at one period.
I think back in 1926 it was reduced from 5 per cent. to 2½ per cent. It then went up again and never looked back. I am not fighting the bookmakers' case. I am pointing out that it is the man in the street who will be paying for this in the long run. Some of us do not know where we are going. The Minister for Justice was screaming about people losing sixpence playing pongo. We are talking about £4,500,000 being paid at the Dublin tracks.
You are not compelled to attend.
No, you are not compelled to attend but the Taoiseach said this morning that the small farmer is vitally interested in this industry and Deputy Barry will appreciate the amount of employment given throughout the State, not alone in greyhound tracks, but under various other headings. Before the levy was mentioned and the tote alone was suggested, the assistants to the bookmakers appeared before the advisory committee and so seriously did they regard their future plight that they asked the advisory committee to recommend that they would get first choice of any position which might arise in the new proposed tote at the greyhound tracks. It was not for pleasure they went there but because they saw their livelihood would be affected.
I have indicated the position in England and what has happened in England will happen here. This whole business in connection with the Greyhound Industry Board is fraught with the greatest difficulties. There is no comparison, good, bad or indifferent with the Racing Board. We are dealing with two entirely different matters. While the bookmakers supported unanimously the establishment of a control board and said it was highly necessary, they nevertheless objected strongly to a levy on course bets and maintained that the revenue of the Irish Coursing Club should provide the funds necessary to finance the board.
They went further and informed the committee that the installation of totalisators on tracks would cause serious unemployment amongst their members. These remarks were made before a levy was spoken of. If it was going to cause serious unemployment then, what must the bookmakers think now?
There were deputations in this House some months ago to members of the Labour Party from representatives of bookmakers' societies. There had been deputations from bookmakers to both the Government side and the Opposition side. They said that their position was so critical that they could not bear any further tax. All these deputations came before the recent increases by the Minister for Finance in the levies. At the time they came here they put up a very good case to members on all sides of the House. They came with facts and figures to show that they could not bear this levy.
The only way of dealing with this matter is to omit Section 32 and not give this right of levy. From the estimated figures, when the tote comes into operation, it is calculated by the advisory committee that there is absolutely no need for a levy at all from the bookmakers. The Minister can say that he has said all that to me. He has pointed out that in the first year 2½ per cent. might be the levy and yield a certain amount, that it might be reduced to 1¼ per cent. for two or three years and then disappear. That would be wishful thinking on the Minister's part. Once the levy goes on, it is not from 2½ per cent. to 1¼ per cent. it will go but down through the years, on some pretext or other, be it new grand stands, photo finish equipment or reorganisation, or what not, that levy will be increased from 2½ per cent. to 5 per cent. and then to 7½ per cent. Trust any control board to find good use for the money which will accrue.
Another part of the advisory committee's report states:—
"...the combined betting turnover on horse-racing tracks, from the totalisator and from course betting in recent years has tended to decline rather than to increase."
I would stress this point to the Minister with reference to the totalisator. I am quoting paragraph 157 of the report:—
"The totalisator will undoubtedly attract a certain volume of betting from bookmakers and will probably attract a number of new backers, who although accustomed to attend greyhound racing fixtures, might hesitate to approach a busy bookmaker with a modest two shillings."
They then suggest that the increased attendance of the public will more than compensate for the loss but they doubt whether any such increase will be on a large scale. They next make the extraordinary statement that they would view with concern any appreciably increased attendance of the public at the Dublin City tracks or rather the increased revenue which would thereby accrue to already exceedingly prosperous undertakings.
Would not one think that the general public should not be saddled with this? Remember, it is not the bookmakers; they are only tax collectors. The new levy will not cost them 1/-. It is you and I, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, who will have to pay this.
Why should we have to pay any more if we pick this type of sport for an odd night's amusement? Why do not Mr. Paddy O'Donoghue, of Shelbourne Park, and my friend, Mr. Jim Frost, of Limerick, and Mr. Riordan, of Harold's Cross, and our friends in Cork and Galway and Waterford make their contribution? We will leave out the provincial tracks, where, I admit, things are not going too well. We will deal with Harold's Cross and Shelbourne Park where, in the words used here, they are already exceedingly prosperous undertakings. Is this House to turn itself into a philanthropic institution for the advancement of the directors of Harold's Cross and Shelbourne Park, to bring increased dividends to these people by our having to pay more taxation on bets? We will see the directors of Shelbourne Park putting up, not just an ordinary lounge bar but something like the White City, a bar about 200 yards long encased in glass. I dread the thought of it.
Of the glass?
Is it the glass the Deputy is afraid of?
I dread the thought of it, I said, and I dread the thought of the revenue which will accrue to the management of both these tracks, extra revenue for these exceedingly prosperous undertakings. The Minister may ask what would I suggest? Not to prolong the agony, I suggest, first of all, that he delete this section in its entirety. I am always against permissive legislation. This is a bait that the control board will take. If the power is not given to the control board, they will have to look elsewhere. I have indicated certain sources from which they can seek the cost of the new totalisators. The capital expenditure on the new totalisators will be in the region of £40,000 each. Are you and I, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, to pay the directors of these two exceedingly prosperous Dublin tracks the cost of putting in these totalisators?
I do not think the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is interested at all.
The Minister is. The initial capital outlay will be at least £40,000 each for the totalisators; inclusive of the cost of erection, it will be approximately £50,000 each. A staff of approximately 35 will be required to operate these machines. As the two tracks concerned run meetings on alternate nights these staffs will be employed every night during the racing season. On the assumption that the operators are paid an average of £1 per night the cost of their salaries will be £8,000 per year. This report goes on to say that, apart from the initial outlay and possible capital repayments, the total running cost of the totalisators on the two tracks will be £11,000 per year. It may be assumed that the cost of collecting the 1¼ per cent. betting levy on £43,000 will be 10 per cent. of this sum, or £4,375, and the control board, after the first year, will have a net revenue of £53,500 approximately. Administrative costs in the first year, as I have shown, will be about £22,000.
Now the bookmakers say they do not want a levy. It will hit them very badly. If, however, a levy must be imposed they ask that the levy be at least a proper one and one that can be worked, namely, 2½ per cent. and not 1½ per cent. It has been calculated that 2½ per cent. on the course bookmakers will yield £10,000, and they will get £1,000 from fees from tracks in the first year at 2½ per cent. Administrative expenses run to £23,000. The cost of collection is £10,000 and the cost and installation of totalisator machinery on the Dublin tracks will be approximately £50,000 each. The cost is not fantastic, but it is fantastic to think that we will be putting these totalisators in for the benefit of certain race-track owners.
How does the Deputy think that the installation of the tote will benefit the track owner?
Of course it will. There will be increased attendances.
Oh!
And increased patronage because of the increased facilities which will be given.
Certainly the track owner will get nothing out of the tote.
Admission charges.
If land is limed in my area, I may get nothing out of it, but I may enjoy the potatoes grown on it. Is that analogy plain enough?
It is not quite perfect.
It is belaboured.
Certainly this report has belaboured me. Deputy Barry has my sympathy, as Deputy MacEntee said, because he signed this instrument of abdications.
All that and this as well, and this is the hardest part of it, let me assure the Deputy.
He has to come in here now——
And listen to this.
——and vote against his own recommendation. It is like the Labour Party amendment earlier to-day which was not moved because there was no Labour Deputy in the House. Now, I have pointed out that at 2½ per cent. a sum of £100,000 will be yielded. Taking into consideration the cost of the totalisator and the £23,000 administrative expenses, there will be a surplus to be carried over to the first year of £10,000. Suppose the levy was only 1¼ per cent. in the first year, the yield will be approximately £43,750. We drop from 2½ per cent. to 1¼ per cent. and we get £43,000 from the 1¼ per cent. The 5 per cent. tote deduction will bring in another £25,000. Licensing fees, estimated surplus and surplus from the preceding year will bring in £84,000. Administrative costs run to £23,000; the levy collection, £24,000, and tote operating costs £11,000. In the second year, after all those figures, this board will say there will be a surplus carried forward to the next year. After the second year in operation they will have a surplus of £37,000. They will have that without subsidising racing or giving grants to courses and, all the time, the Irish Coursing Club is working away at its own coursing and breeding. I think I have shown in no uncertain manner that the revenue which will accrue to the new board from the totalisator will more than defray the running costs and administrative expenses of the control board.
I agree that the Minister could very truthfully say that in the initial period they will have to get funds from some source, but surely such a contingency has arisen on a previous occasion, as in the case of the Racing Board, the National Stud or other such cases. These bodies are empowered to raise loans, or float companies, and the Minister for Finance may take up a certain amount of the shares. Surely that difficulty could be overcome. Once the tote was in on the two Dublin tracks, they say here, a very conservative estimate of the revenue from this would be £25,000. They were getting £1,000 from the licensing fees from greyhound tracks around the country and that makes £26,000. As I say, the position is really one in which, the more one reads the advisory committee report, the more one comes to the conclusion that this section should be suspended altogether.
The Minister in his statement originally on the section has pointed out that what he is doing is simply allowing the board, if they deem it necessary, to impose a levy. I am pointing out to him that, in his innocence, he is of opinion that the possibility might arise that the levy would be imposed for only a year or a year and a half. We all know what has happened in the past. However, I simply bring the matter to the attention of the Minister to see if something could be done to remedy it.
This is a very difficult section and I confess I approach it with two minds. I am not opposed to the tote; I think it ought to be a clean and honest system of betting that can be well-controlled and regulated. It has a great many attractions, as the report points out, for those who want to bet in small amounts or for those who are afraid of weakening the market when they approached a bookmaker with a substantial bet. People bet with a certain degree of privacy that does not always obtain when one bets in the ring. I have no prejudice whatever against the tote as a betting machine and I have no doubt that the great majority of the patrons of the greyhound racing tracks will find the tote very attractive. These considerations are, in fact, the foundation upon which the advisory committee has made its recommendations concerning the tax to be imposed upon those who bet on the tote and upon those who bet with bookmakers. But there is a human aspect of this matter of which I think we cannot lose sight. I think it is an aspect of the matter which has perhaps been somewhat lightly regarded by the members of the advisory committee. That is, as I have mentioned before, the fact that the majority of those who make books on greyhound tracks are small men.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
I do not know whether I should refer to the remark which the Minister made while the Dáil was in temporary recess but, really, I think the Minister will agree that this section is one which will affect the livelihood of a great number of people and it is rather disconcerting to feel, when one is talking to empty benches, that one is merely beating the air.
I was saying that there are humanitarian considerations arising in this section to which I think the advisory committee did not give sufficient consideration. Most of us, or at least those of us who are not very familiar with this particular form of sport, those of us who do not go to dog tracks, are perhaps inclined to think of the bookmaker as a sort of minor plutocrat. I have no doubt that many bookmakers are prosperous; those who bet in the ring at horse-race meetings are undoubtedly very substantial men. Unfortunately that is not the case. That is undoubtedly not the case with those who attend and stand up at greyhound races. The vast majority of them are small men who find it very hard to make a living, who have, if they want to remain in business, to be very circumspect in their dealings with the public and who have to live very modestly. I am afraid that the imposition of a levy on these men will undoubtedly deprive a great number of them of their livelihood.
I approach this section with two minds. The idea of the totalisator appeals to me. On the other hand I can see that the introduction of the totalisator is going to create very serious problems for the small bookmaker and his wife and family. I am really wondering whether, taking it by and large, it is worth while imposing a levy at all on the small bookmakers. I am particularly doubtful whether there is any justification for imposing it during the first year at the rate of 2½ per cent. which the advisory committee recommends in paragraph 164.
I doubt the equity of that recommendation. It seems to me to be unfair. I assume that the committee justified it to themselves on the grounds that the Greyhound Board to be set up under the Bill would have no funds whatever at its disposal. As the Bill stands now, that, of course, is true, unless the board were to avail of the power to borrow which is conferred on it by Section 17 of the Bill. It might be argued whether, in view of the present very stringent credit conditions, the board could make effective use of that power, even if it decided to do so. I do not suppose that that would be advanced by the Minister as a justification for proceeding to impose the levy on the bookmakers during the first years of the board's operation at the rate of 2½ per cent., so I do not propose to say that the board could finance itself during the first year by availing of its powers to borrow, I think, up to £25,000. We can rule that out.
There is another source from which the board can find the money wherewith to finance its initial operations. We had a long debate this morning, the trend of which has been running all through this Bill, in which the very substantial assets of the Irish Coursing Club were mentioned. I think that it would be better that the board should be empowered, during the initial year of its existence, in any event, to draw on the resources of the Irish Coursing Club for the moneys which are necessary to establish the board and to enable it to initiate its operations and to function as is envisaged in the Bill. I think that is a much more fair and reasonable way of approaching the problem of finding the initial finance for the board than to mulct the small bookmaker to the tune of 2½ per cent. of his turnover.
I cannot, in fact, see any justification at all for imposing this initial levy on the bookmakers. Why should he be compelled to collect from his patrons the capital which is to be utilised to establish a board which will ultimately be in competition with himself? Part III of the Bill certainly foreshadows that one of the things which the board will do in order to provide itself with revenue is to establish totalisators which will be in very severe competition with the existing bookmakers. It does seem to me to be very unfair that the bookmakers should be mulcted in this way to establish an organisation which will enter into very severe competition with them, competition which, I believe, will be so severe as to put the majority of them, I might nearly say the great majority of them, out of business. I do not know whether the Minister has adverted to that position. I feel, despite the hard things which I occasionally say about him, that he would say with me that that is really going a bit too far.
I would urge very strongly, and from no partisan approach on the matter at all, that this section should be amended in such a way as to stop the board from prescribing any levy during the period when the board is rendering little or no service to the industry and to those who own or patronise the tracks. It would give the bookmakers some little respite to adjust themselves to the severe competition with which they will be faced. It is not a proposal to which exception could be taken by anyone. It seems to me at any rate to be merely the essence of fair play and common justice.
With regard to the proposal to make a levy at all, again I doubt whether it will be worth while imposing a levy, with all the difficulties of collecting it. I doubt if it will be worth while to compel the bookmakers to collect this levy off all the course bets which they may take. As I mentioned in the beginning, the totalisator is an extremely attractive machine with which to bet. To realise this, one has only to go to a racecourse and see the crowds lining up at every window, making their bets and coming away without any undue fuss. They can make their bets in comfort and make them very easily. I think that the inherent attractions of the totalisator are such that the machine will inevitably deprive the ordinary common run of bookmakers of their patrons. But it seems a pity that the extinction of the small man should be hastened by compelling him to make the levy.
It may be said that the amount which he has to levy is small, but there is the difficulty and the fact that he is dealing as one individual with another, and he is in a position where there may be petty arguments—indeed arguments which are far from petty and which may be heated and violent —as to whether he has deducted too much or too little. Because of its very nature, this cannot happen with regard to totalisator betting, but as we all know it has happened with bookmakers. Where the vast majority of these bookmakers are small men, taking small bets, they will be harassed and this is going to prove very troublesome indeed.
I think that, if the main purpose of this Bill is to set up totalisators or deprive the totalisators of competition, that will be achieved by the mere establishment of this levy. I will concede that the levy to be imposed on bookmakers during the second and subsequent seasons is only 25 per cent. of that which is to be levied on the totalisator pool. But, as I have said, the totalisator is impersonal. The whole thing is done automatically. The amount of calculation that has to be made is infinitesimal. But for the bookmaker, dealing, say, even with 10/- or £1 bets—not to speak of the unfortunate individual whose principal bet is 2/- or 2/6—it does mean a certain amount of trouble and calculation and, what is very important in regard to greyhound racing, it does mean a substantial amount of delay.
I do not want to put the case too strongly, but as Deputy O'Malley pointed out, within about one and a half hours—I have not been to the dogs for a long time—or within a very brief period, six races are run so that they have merely time to collect their bets and get another one on. If, in these circumstances, there is any delay on the part of the bookmaker in calculating what the levy is, what he is to be responsible to the board for in respect of each and every one of his bets, it will certainly put him at a further disadvantage so far as the totalisator is concerned.
I feel that for the vast majority of the people, the bookmakers' occupation is not held in great esteem. Some people certainly would approach this question with a very prejudiced mind. I think we have got to approach it with the greatest objectivity, so that we can deal fairly with it. Many people would say it is a good thing that the levy is imposed on bookmakers because eventually they would be put out of business. I think that is a harsh way to approach this question. Most of the people who find themselves established as bookmakers in these days, and particularly most of those who have to stand up on the greyhound tracks, are men well settled in years. I meet a great many of them from time to time, in the House and elsewhere, and most of them are men who would find it very difficult to turn to some other means of livelihood. Most of them are men without a trade; most of them certainly are men who are not members of any organised body of labour; many of them, you might say, are men of mediocre education.
I do not know what will happen to them. We do not want to make them a charge on public funds, and yet I think that will inevitably be the effect of this Bill in so far as a great number of them are concerned. I feel sure that the Minister would not want that; I am certain nobody else in the House would want it. I think we should let the totalisator operate on its own merits because I am perfectly certain it would justify itself and that we may be able to soften the blow on those who find themselves committed to this way of earning a living. I feel we should leave out Section 32 altogether. If we do not do that, I suggest we should give an undertaking that no immediate levy will be imposed on the bookmakers mainly in order to provide funds for the board to erect totalisators mainly in order to compete with the bookmakers.
I hope the Minister will consider this matter carefully. The problem will not last for very long and we can at least give the unfortunate people who will be severely hit by this section when it comes into operation a longer, a sufficient period in which to continue in their business or to find a better way of living.
On this matter, I want to make the position quite clear. I believe that this Bill will greatly benefit the bookmaker by reviving this industry and putting the whole business of greyhound racing on a decent and equitable basis, calculated to command the confidence of those who have ceased to be patrons of it because they no longer believe in the rectitude of its administration. That is the first point.
The second point is that this levy will operate as a tax on no bookmaker. As Deputy O'Malley has pointed out, and I pointed out, the bookmaker is merely the collector of the levy from the betting public. As Deputy O'Malley pointed out, it is the betting public pay it. We believe that it is just and equitable to draw off the pool of wagered money a sum sufficient to enable the control board to improve the amenities, the stakes, and facilities of the greyhound racing industry and to provide adequate supervision so as to revitalise it and put it in a sound condition.
Thirdly, I think that it was Deputy O'Malley who pointed to the precedent of the disappearance of the bookmaker in Great Britain. I should like to remind Deputies of a matter I mentioned on the Second Reading of the Bill—that there is no comparison between the circumstances here and in Great Britain. The totalisator in Great Britain is operated by the track owners for the track owners' benefit and advantage, with the result that the tendency manifested itself in Great Britain for the track owners to favour the totalisator as against the bookmaker.
The exact opposite is the case in Ireland. Under this Bill, the track owner gets nothing from the totalisator. All the benefits of the totalisator go to the industry for its improvement under the direction of the control board. But the track owner continues to draw the admission fee from the bookmaker and, therefore, it is in his interest jealously to protect the interests of the bookmaker who patronises his track, because the more bookmakers he draws to his track the more entrance fees he collects.
I am advised that I cannot successfully inaugurate this legislation without the levy on the bookmaker. That is the best advice I can get both from the commission and from others from whom I have taken counsel. I considered most carefully every conceivable device that could be proposed to me to avoid putting the levy on the bookmakers, but I was forced to the conclusion that unless you want to abandon the whole legislation you must have the levy on the bookmaker.
I offered to the bookmakers the assurance that they would not be asked to collect it at a level in excess of 1¼ per cent. if that would help, but it was by no means their unanimous opinion that a limit of 1¼ per cent. would be an advantage. There is the consideration that if the levy were 2½ per cent. ab initio, the term during which they would be required to maintain the levy might be materially abbreviated.
Could the Minister give the considerations which lead him to hope that such a position would obtain?
The Deputy will see reference to it in the report of the commission. In the report, the recommendation is that the levy on bookmakers should be maintained until such time as the operation of the totalisator yielded revenue sufficient to carry the whole burden. That is what is present to my mind. In the event of a revenue developing from the totalisator, I think it is specifically set out in the report that at the end of five years the control board should review the whole financial set up with a view to determining whether a continuation of the bookmakers' levy would be necessary or even desirable.
That is my understanding of the programme. It is no use my setting myself up here as an expert on greyhound racing or administration. I am assured we cannot make the thing work without some initial levy on the bookmakers to finance the improvement of the industry in the variety of ways contemplated in the Bill—the amenities, stakes, supervision and the other services which will be the duty of the control board to discharge. I do not believe it will hurt a single bookmaker. On the contrary, I believe the ultimate effect on the bookmakers will greatly improve their circumstances. In fact the Bill will not work without some levy on the bookmakers in the interim period. If it would, I have no desire to impose this levy. I am advised it would not and I have no alternative but to ask the House to accept the section. Our hope is that at a reasonably early stage the revenue would make the maintenance of the levy on the bookmakers unnecessary and that the recommendations of the advisory body, that the board would review the position in five years' time with a view to determining whether the levy should not then be dropped, would be implemented.
It has been put to me by a number of bookmakers that they are finding it very hard to carry on already without having to meet this extra tax. A number of the smaller bookmakers who have been making a rather indifferent living over the years state that this will cripple them altogether because they are being attacked from two sides. In the first place, there is the increase in the tax and, secondly, the competition from the totalisators, which will eliminate a great deal of the business they transacted heretofore.
Unfortunately every piece of legislation that is brought in seems to have the effect of hurting somebody. While I agree that this Bill was long overdue —and nobody welcomes it more than I do—nevertheless we are interfering with the livelihood of quite a number of people by asking this section of the community to pay extra tax. As the Minister rightly said, the bookmakers do not pay the tax; it is the public who pay it, the ordinary punters who place a bet. That may be said of all taxation. The person who purchases any consumer goods or ordinary machinery is the person who has to pay the taxation but it is the person who must collect the tax who will always suffer. We have had that experience during the years in relation to taxes on various commodities, that people in the trade have complained that their sales had gone down. If this happens in relation to taxation on everyday commodities, I cannot see how the bookmakers will survive, if the same result follows. As Deputy MacEntee has pointed out the small bookmakers we are discussing have merely existed and tried to carry on, often in adversity, over the years. Now we will squeeze them out altogether.
The Minister states that his advisers have told him they cannot carry on without this increased tax. When the Racing Board was first established, the tax they were paying was 5 per cent. and it was reduced to 2½ per cent. Why was it reduced? Why did the Racing Board not continue reaping the benefit of higher taxation at that period to carry out the very essential schemes the Racing Board had in mind? As a result of experience and as a result of the various representations that had been made to the Minister for Finance at that period it was found not to be practicable, that they were taking too much from the punter and the bookmaker. When people put on a bet they blamed the bookmaker for taking an increased percentage and as a result the tax had to be removed. Now we have the position that even when the tax was increased recently, the Racing Board kicked up a row and stated that the increased taxation would affect them considerably. In the light of the experience we have gained over the years, and as a result of the advice obtained from various quarters, surely we must find some other more reasonable method for raising the necessary funds to improve the industry so that we will not squeeze out some of these bookmakers.
I have told the House on a number of previous occasions that we are all anxious to make this a good Bill. We are anxious to find a means whereby measures may be introduced which will not have to interfere with the livelihood of one section of the community in order to improve that of another section. The Minister should ask himself: "If it is a fact that these small bookmakers are making a haphazard living at the present time and are not doing so well, how can I make this Bill workable without interfering with them?" The Minister told us he cannot do that. I am not convinced of that.
If we eliminate the bookmakers, our action will be tantamount to killing the goose which lays the golden eggs. If bookmakers deduct this tax, or levy, then people will bet on the tote and refuse to pay this tax to the bookmakers. I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this section. In a year or two things may have improved; the bookmakers' standard of living and financial position may have improved. At the moment I am told by long-established bookmakers that they are only eking out an existence. They have a constant struggle. I appeal to the Minister to forgo this levy on these already overburdened bookmakers for a year or two at least.
We do not like holding up the Bill or delaying its passage through the House, but we have to be fair and just to all sections of our people. Remember, it is not the views expressed here which will operate; it is what is contained in this section. If the section is passed, the Minister will be powerless to help the people towards whom he is anxious to show goodwill. Surely, there is some other direction in which he could raise this money. As Deputy MacEntee has pointed out, many bookmakers are beyond their labour; they will not now be able to fit into some other sphere or take up some other activity. For that reason alone, the Minister should do nothing which may injure them.
I appeal to the Minister to drop this section. If, as time goes on, the situation improves the Minister can then come in here with amending legislation. Very few Acts of this House have not at some stage been amended so the Minister will be in no danger of creating a precedent. There is no shadow of doubt that the bookmakers at the moment cannot bear this tax.
I shall vote against this section. I want to explain very briefly why. I shall vote against it because what is now, the not expressed intention, but certainly the implied intention, of the Minister to induce the board to give effect to the proposal which provides for the imposition of a levy at the rate of 2½ per cent. on bookmakers in order to establish an organisation to compete against bookmakers themselves, is both inequitable and unjust. I regret that I am not able to accept the Minister's view that there is a suggestion in the report that, if the bookmakers accept these levies, in a brief period they may be relieved of them altogether. On the contrary, as I read paragraph 164 of the report it suggests that, so far from there being a reduction in the levy, there may be an increase in the levy to 2½ per cent. on bookmakers and 7½ per cent. on the tote. My objection to the section is confirmed by what the advisory committee itself has said in paragraph 157.
I want to point out that while the tote turnover has increased, the total amount wagered on racecourses has declined, whether the betting has been done through the tote or the bookmakers. The only conclusion to be drawn from that is that even where horse racing is concerned, where conditions from the bookmakers' point of view are somewhat better than they would be under the Bill, the bookmakers have suffered very severely since the introduction of the tote. That strengthens my objection to Section 32 and it strengthens my opposition to putting a levy on bookmakers during the first year, before the board has begun to operate, at a rate of 2½ per cent. on the wagers. I am sorry; I would like to meet the Minister and give him this section without a division but so far as I am concerned that is the position.
I wonder if I might ask the Minister seriously to draw his own picture of the situation that will develop when this Bill becomes an Act? I think it was on the Second Stage that we made some references to this section. I want the Minister to accept from me that I have formed my own views from what I might describe as a real, serious examination of this matter. I shall first of all try to point out to the Minister that the advent of the tote would create a new situation on these greyhound racetracks so that there would be an added attraction for people who have never gone to these meetings or who, if they did go, did not have ordinary betting transactions with bookmakers. I do not know whether the Minister knows that there is a form of gambling attaching to the tote which does not exist as far as bookmakers are concerned. First there is a choice of betting on a dog to win or to be placed. You can bet on the dog being placed which is not the normal practice with bookmakers. There is also what I might describe as a nightly lottery on each race, a gamble on which two dogs will come first and second. This particular form of transaction does not arise with the bookmakers. All these different transactions become possible with the tote, and will bring new revenue from which the tote will have its percentage.
The opinions of the advisory committee as to estimates of turnover are just, if you like, admitted to be wild guesses so that, therefore, they could just as easily be very much underestimated as over-estimated. Apart from what Deputy MacEntee has said about its not being in accordance with what we understand as equity to ask men to damage their own business and their own livelihood for the purpose of subsidising a competitor, I want to say to the Minister that this may drive a considerable number of people out of employment and the employers themselves out of existence.
The report does suggest at paragraph 157 that it is anticipated that bookmakers will be driven out of business and that their staffs will become unemployed. They make the suggestion that such disemployed persons who were previously engaged in this kind of work should be employed by the new tote. If anybody wants clearer evidence than that, I do not know where it will be found. I was just quoting the number of the paragraph from memory. It is paragraph 157 on page 64 of the advisory committee's report, and I had better quote this part of it:—
"We are not prepared to agree with the views expressed on behalf of the bookmakers' assistants that the installation of totalisators on city tracks would cause serious unemployment amongst their members. Their association requested that consideration be given in due course to absorption in the totalisator staff of any members of the association who may lose their employment as a result of the installation of totalisators.
Although no further objections to the totalisator were raised before us, we are aware that a previous committee of inquiry advised in a majority report against a proposal in this connection, chiefly on the grounds that totalisators would provide increased facilities for betting, particularly by a section of the public who could ill afford to bet."
I wrongly interpreted it, and thought it was the Bookmakers' Association who made that case, but nevertheless this was the proposal, and it is implied that this is the way out. The other part of that quotation confirms what I said about the new type of betting. It is referred to there as new persons being induced to gamble who did not do so before.
On the Second Stage, we discussed the difficulty, first of all, of applying the levy, the physical difficulty of collecting 2½ per cent. on a 2/- bet. The calculations of the fractions of pennies and halfpennies that would arise would create a situation in which, we pointed out, the bookmaker would probably have to carry with him a wagon load of coppers. The fear was also expressed that the system would be an inducement to unfair competition between bookmakers themselves because, in order to secure business, one bookmaker might feel he could afford not to deduct the tax from his clients, whereas another bookmaker who might have a very small net return on his night's operations, could not afford to do so.
I want to assure the Minister that this levy on greyhound bookmaking operations is full of problems, not perhaps from the State point of view, but from the board's point of view, but I say that, from the human side of it, from the point of view of those engaged in that business, the situation would be very difficult. We do not know what result will accrue; the Minister does not know, and could not know. It has been suggested that, instead of putting this levy on immediately, the Bill be so framed that if it can be shown that the income from the tote is inadequate to meet the requirements of the board the levy can be put on the bookmakers or, alternatively, they can be charged a fee for transacting their business, in the manner which we discussed on the Second Stage.
Probably the Minister will remember that I suggested, in connection with the charge that is to be made for admission to bookmakers, a similar charge could be made to the bookmaker on his entrance fee as a contribution to this board. That is easy to calculate, because if it is assumed that the entry fee will be £1 to the bookmaker for carrying on his work, and if there are 60 bookmakers attending a racetrack for six nights of the week—that is to say, for three nights a week at each of two tracks—we can estimate that we would have £60 per night coming in for the board, and that would be a very substantial contribution—certainly, if that could be applied in the first year, or the first and second years.
I am appealing to the Minister not to pursue the idea of carrying the proposal through in this way because it would only be followed by hardship for those who have to pay the levy, and by dislocation and general dissatisfaction on the part of the public. Surely the Minister will accept the proposition? We are going to get income from the tote whatever the final percentage agreed on may be. The punter, that is to say, the person who makes his bet through the tote, does not really care whether the tote deducts 7½ per cent. or 10 per cent. from the turnover; all he is concerned about is backing a winner and getting the best odds to his money.
That would make a substantial contribution to the running costs and to the provision of capital repayment for the cost of the installation. If the Minister feels that he is seriously advised that it could not be expected that the turnover would be of such magnitude as to justify levies on another source of income then I appeal to him to accept the suggestion I made that, right from the beginning, there should be a charge made by the board to each bookmaker attending a racetrack, at least equal to his entrance fee to that track.
It is quite obvious that, in the beginning, there will be at most three totalisators in operation—one in Shelbourne Park, one in Harold's Cross and possibly one in Cork City. For a long time to come our totalisator development will remain at that point because it is at these places that you have a large number of days racing in the year. Would the Minister, at this stage, say that he will consider the proposal and, by Report Stage, possibly we will have another proposal to make? If that is done by him this section can be left in abeyance instead of our having, at this side of the House, to vote against it now with the consequences which follow from a decision of that kind. Can I appeal to the Minister to say that he is prepared to give that consideration to our proposal?
It is obvious that he must be impressed that there is something in what is being said about the taking of this levy and the hardships and grievances which will arise from it. The Minister was gracious enough, before this, to meet us on a question and his action has, I think, solved a serious matter of principle which was held by us here. Could I ask him now to take the same approach to this very serious problem which has been created by this section? The Minister, if he wishes, can now give an indication of his opinion and I will give way to him to do so.
I would be very happy to meet the Deputy but there would be no use in my trying to deceive him. The fact is that the Bill, as drafted, is permissive and the alternative mentioned by the Deputy is incorporated in Section 48, sub-section (4).
How does the Minister say that Section 32 is permissive?
The board can make regulations for the payment of levies and generally for the carrying out of the provisions of this section. The alternative which the board may use, if it wishes to do so, is incorporated in Section 48, sub-section (4). Nothing would be easier for me than to say that I would do what the Deputy has asked me to do.
They are two different things.
They are not. This is a provision which permits them to make such a charge in lieu of a levy. Nothing would be easier for me than to say that the two alternatives are open to the board to decide. I do not feel that it would be honest for me to mislead the House on that point. I have to tell the House that, in my judgment, the board will avail of their powers under Section 32 and impose a levy on bookmakers of not less than 1¼ per cent. This levy will not be borne by the bookmakers. It will be borne by the betting public and none of us wants to put a charge on the betting public in excess of what it is essential to charge for the purposes of the Bill.
Might I further direct the attention of the Deputy to a quotation from paragraph 157 of the report in which the committee gave their opinion on the representations made by the bookmakers regarding the danger of the totalisator seriously interfering with the bookmakers' business? The committee expressed the opinion that those misapprehensions were not well founded. The alternative that the Deputy suggests is already in the Bill. but I would not be honest if I lead the Deputy into believing that the board will not make the levy from the bookmakers. In my opinion, the board must do so to the extent of a levy of not less than 1¼ per cent. on bets carried by bookmakers.
I assure the Deputy that the reference in the report, in paragraph 164, with regard to the possibility that if, at the end of a period, the board's finances would justify the suspension of the levy on bookmakers' bets, and regarding the total dependence of the board on the revenue derived from the totalisator, will be borne in mind. I do not think I can add anything to that beyond saying that the Bill, as it stands, provides the two alternative methods. It would not be honest for me to present Section 32 to the House without telling it quite frankly that the intention is that a levy of not less than 1¼ will be made on bookmakers' bets.
I am afraid that I cannot accept the Minister's association of Section 32 and Section 48. My reading of Section 48 is that it deals with the board's regulation of admission fees charged to bookmakers and to be paid to track owners. These do not accrue at all to the board.
If the Deputy would look at sub-section (4) (b) and (c) he would see that it envisages the suspension of Section 32 to Section 35 in which event the board would substitute a fixed charge such as the Deputy has in mind.
What I am suggesting to the Minister is to leave that for 12 months after the establishment of the tote and then opt as to which of the two is likely to be the better. I say that it would be better, instead of Section 32, to take it out and put into Section 48 that, in lieu of these levies, we should have an additional charge on the bookmaker, the charges to be fixed under Section 48, which charges would go to the owners of the tracks, plus a charge payable at the entrances by the bookmakers, which would go to the board. I must say that, in my opinion, the Minister will get a very substantial and really recognisable income in that form that can be treated on the basis of estimating income in relation to estimated expenditure, rather than a levy which can be very problematical as to its ups and downs.
It is literally true that, under the Bill as it stands at present, the board could adopt the course that the Deputy suggests, but the board could also make the levy.
Could we not get together in this way? Let the Bill go through but let the entrance charge have priority and let the levy be an alternative if they find that the entrance charge is not satisfactory.
I think the board may do that.
This business of "the board may" becomes translated into "the board shall" and "the board does". The Minister knows that is so; if it is "may with the consent of the Minister"——
Very well. The Deputy is a great man for making a bargain. I will give the Deputy an undertaking that I will not withhold my consent from either proposal put to me by the board.
That is not going far enough.
What does the Deputy want? Does he want me to make the board do what I think it ought not to do?
It is a two-headed penny.
I apprehend that this means that "the board may" means you tell the board that it must.
We are getting near a bargain. Would the Minister accept my suggestion that he transfer what is in Section 48 to Section 32 and that he transfer what is in Section 32 to Section 48 as the alternative?
No, but I will say this: the Bill as it stands entitles the board to adopt the procedure under Section 48, 4 (b) and (c), on the one hand, or to adopt the procedure under Section 32. If the board puts up to me proposals under 48 as essential I will consent, or if the board puts up the procedure under 32 as essential I will give my consent to that.
Which does the Minister think the board will recommend?
I think they will recommend 32. But I will give the Deputy this undertaking: I will not influence them.
We know that. We know we will not influence them either. I am afraid, if the Minister cannot see the force of whatever argument we have tried to make in this case, we will have no alternative but to vote against this section. We are trying to get the Minister to see that we want to do justice. We do not want to do an injustice, and I am sure the Minister does not want to do an injustice. I am saying quite seriously that I believe, if Section 32 is the one for which the board will opt, as I understand they may do, the trouble is going to start, and it is a trouble which will become incurable. Men will be put out of business, people will be put out of employment and the whole greyhound racing industry, as we understand it, will be damaged.
At one time it was thought by some people that the advent of the tote would kill the bookmaker. I do not subscribe to that view at all. I think the advent of the tote is going to add considerably to the attendances at racetracks by the public, and the Minister can assure the board, or the board will probably find it out for themselves, that these increased attendances and the increased number of transactions, plus new transactions and new forms of betting, will ensure that the board will get a very substantial portion of its required income.
One of the problems the Minister sees, and we all see, is that they will have to work on an overdraft for a period. How long will it be before there is a surplus of income over expenditure required to pay off the capital expenditure? I think the Minister could agree that the matter be reviewed. Do not put on the levy. Put a charge on, if you like, for the admission and review the matter in two years, and so alter Section 32 that it can be considered only if, after a period of one or two years or whatever period is agreed on, it is found necessary to supplement the income by a form of levy. Surely the Minister can see the sense of that and accept it?
It is no harm to bring a fresh view on this matter about the levy on the bookmaker. I wonder if the Minister, when having Section 32 drafted, looked for a similar case where the right of levy was made to a board under the control of this House? What occurred to me at once was the E.S.B.
Why not take the Racing Board?
They have a full right; they were given power by this House to levy in whatever direction they liked. There are people throughout the country at present, who, if they had that opportunity again, would not allow Dáil Éireann to give them that power. We have the same thing in this House and in local authorities throughout the country. Whenever anybody has the power to levy money on someone else, they cling to that authority and they make a case year after year for raising more money. That is the danger.
If the Minister will look at page 68 of the report of the advisory committee he will see that in the first year 2½ per cent. is estimated to bring in £100,000. In the second year, for some peculiar reason, 1¼ per cent. is only estimated to bring in £43,750. Where has the rest gone to? I know that the tote is not in existence in the first year. They expect to get £25,000 from the tote. The total from the bookmakers and from the tote in the second year will be £84,000 as against £100,000.
Is this Table 9?
£43,000 in the second year. The tote is to give £25,000. That will not make £100,000 when you add it together.
No.
Where is the reduction right away in the revenue?
The levy on the bookmakers in the first year would be 2½ per cent. and 1¼ per cent. in the second year.
One and a quarter per cent. plus the totalisator. It does not make sense. It says, in other words, that the board's revenue from people attending the tracks will drop a certain amount from one year to another.
They will reduce the rate of the levy.
The people who do not bet with the bookmaker will bet with the totalisator. The thing does not make sense at all. If you turn to the expenditure side, you will see what I am trying to prove. The cost of the collection of the levy will be £10,000 in the first year. I do not know what kind of police force they propose to have to collect that money from the bookmakers. The sum for contingencies is £8,000. Go down along then to the total income from the bookmakers at £43,000 and the £25,000 income from the tote. These figures represent much less than the £100,000 levied in the first year. Look at the expenditure side and you will find administrative expenses at £23,000. In the second year the cost of the collection of the levy drops to £4,300, but the cost of the operation of the totalisator is given at £11,000. In plain words, it is going to cost £15,000 in the second year to collect £68,000 and it will cost only £10,000 to collect £100,000 in the first year.
The thing looks "phoney". It proves that it is bad business to give such power to boards appointed through legislation of this kind, whether they be racing boards, the E.S.B., Bord na Móna or any other board. It is bad business to give them power to levy, because you will find that over the years they will make a case for a review of the levy with the object of increasing it. In this case the board appointed may levy off the bookmaker only.
I feel sure the Minister does not want to kill off all the small bookmakers in the country. If that were to happen, the House would be very sorry for having made such a law. These small bookmakers and their families depend on their ability to earn a living. They pay rents and rates and taxes. I feel sure that neither the Minister nor the advisory committee contemplated that small bookmakers would be wiped out in a year or two. I wonder if the Minister has given sufficiently careful consideration to that. It is a very serious matter and something no Deputy could take lightly. The Minister has given no guarantee to the House that bookmakers will not be wiped out through the operation of this section.
The Minister has not said one way or another whether he has power to confine the operation of the totalisator to the City of Dublin. The board can erect totalisators in any area they like. There is talk already about having one on wheels—a huge van, drawn by tractor, which can be set up on any small track in the country. That would wipe out the small bookmakers in a very short time. Why should Deputies sit here, knowing what the results of this law will be? We have seen similar results flow from previous legislation of this type. I would ask the Minister to withdraw this section and redraft it, keeping in mind what the results might be.
If Dáil Éireann, with its members' eyes open, wants to wipe out the bookmakers on greyhound tracks, let the Minister say so and let us know what we are doing. The Minister has not told us what advice he has got on this matter from those who are capable of advising him. This is a very important section of the community with which we are dealing. I doubt very much if the Minister has ever attended a greyhound racetrack in his life. Possibly he may have gone to see what it was like, but I would like to tell him that 20 or 30 small bookmakers attend each track in the country, some of them travelling 20 miles, in order to make their livelihood. Any body of human beings would be reluctant to give power to levy on some section of the community an amount they would find it very hard to bear. It must be borne in mind that boards like that proposed to be set up here very seldom reduce taxation. Governments do not do it; local authorities do not do it. The E.S.B. do not do it and neither do Bord na Móna. Even Deputy Corry's Comhlucht Siúcra Éireann have raised expenses during the years. They have been able to justify the increasing of costs on the man with the red hand who produces the beet.
I think the Minister would be strongly advised at this stage to withdraw this section and possibly to introduce a modified section later on. I would suggest, as an alternative, that he would keep in his own hands the power to decide, from year to year, what levy the board might impose on bookmakers during the first five years of the operation of the Act. I would press him at least to keep that power in his own hands. This board should be required to prove the necessity for the levy for which they apply, because as the section stands at the moment they will be judge and jury; the bookmakers will have no appeal from their decision, not even to the courts of the land. In fact this board may refuse a bookmaker a licence to operate if he or any group representing him object to the levy.
I did not intend to intervene in the debate at this stage because, when Section 9 was passed by the House, I lost all interest in the Bill. Dealing with the amendment I have put down here in regard to the levy on bookmakers, this 1¼ per cent. represents 3d. in the £. We have not been told whether it is on the bet or on the complete takings this levy is to be imposed. We have not been told what type of machinery the bookmakers are expected to set up in order to make it easy to collect this levy. Anybody who is conversant with greyhound racing knows that races are held within 20 minutes of each other and the difficulty there is in paying out and opening a book on a succeeding race. There is very little time left for the bookmakers or for the punters to make their arrangements say for the collection of winnings on one race and the placing of bets on the subsequent race.
In principle, I disapprove of this levy on bookmakers. This is the first step towards the introduction of the tote and when the tote has been introduced to the various tracks, starting with the city tracks, I am sure, and extending later to the provincial tracks you will find that there will be a general pool and each track, irrespective of how much it has contributed to the industry generally, will have the right to draw from that pool although many tracks may not be worth any contribution from the board that is being created. The installation of the tote on many greyhound racing tracks will sound the death knell of the bookmakers on those tracks. In the smaller tracks, with the attendances as they are at present, there will be very little room left for a second system of betting or gambling.
It has been suggested in many quarters that the bookmaker does not cater for the small punter, that he is not prepared to take small bets of 1/- or 2/-. That may be true of the Dublin tracks but it is not true to say that the bookmakers are not prepared to accept small bets on the provincial tracks.
If the tote is introduced with a 2/- bet being made available, as it will be, I can see how the bookmaker's business will be affected on these small provincial tracks. It means the bookmaker must go. He will not have the finances or the organisation behind him which the board will have. The board will have the assistance of the State and the contributions from the tote, and through the proposed levy the bookmakers will actually be contributing to their own extinction. Why any Minister should think it necessary to place this imposition on any section of the community I do not know. If there was no fund there from which to draw it would be a different thing, but there is a fund there.
The greyhound racing industry does not start with the passing of this Bill. The greyhound industry has been in existence for a great number of years, since about 1916 or 1917, and since that time substantial funds have been built up. The greyhound industry to-day owns a paper circulating throughout the country. It is the owner of a racecourse. Its members are, whether individually or as representatives of the industry in the Irish Coursing Club, directors of many of these provincial racing tracks. These two undertakings, Powerstown Park and the Sporting Press are very valuable assets, the property of the greyhound industry to-day.
Why is that property not being devoted to this purpose? It has been estimated that the cost of the board in the first year will be about £23,000. If we assume that the cost of running the tote will be an additional £12,000, the total expenses for the board and for the tote will be £35,000 a year. Is this property now in the possession of the Irish Coursing Club able to make no contribution towards meeting these expenses? Is the industry itself able to make no contribution towards meeting the expenses of the board? Why is the obligation placed on the sporting public, as it were, to contribute to the upkeep of the tracks throughout the country and in Dublin? Ultimately, it will be the sporting public, the punters, who will be making that contribution and the bookmakers will act as agents only for the board. That agency will disappear when the tote is introduced to the track because the tote will cut out the bookmakers completely.
When this levy has been collected and the expenses paid, the Minister has not stated to what purpose these moneys will be devoted. The only thing we have been told so far is that the expenses of the board may amount to £23,000. Is any provision to be made for better stake money? Is any provision to be made, for instance, for a reduction in the entry fees for the general public? We have not touched on any of these points yet and no argument has been put forward to justify the collection of this levy. Surely it is not the intention to set up this board in order to give a few people better positions than the ones they hold to-day? We know what the intention of the Minister was when he refused to accept the amendment put forward to Section 9. He merely wants a continuation of the system which has existed since 1916.
The people responsible for the management, or mismanagement, of the Irish Coursing Club during that period will now be legally restored to the position of being the people responsible for the industry in the future. These people will be entrusted with the collection of these moneys to expend them in any way they think fit. Since the foundation of this State we have had commissions appointed to inquire into betting finances. We had the 1927 commission which reported unanimously in favour of the tote to assist horse racing. The 1932 commission did not agree that the tote should be instituted to help horse racing; there was actually a minority in support of the tote on that occasion. In 1951 the people responsible for this report on the greyhound racing industry were not in favour of the tote on provincial tracks; they were opposed to it. They were prepared to try it out as an experiment and, if the experiment were successful, the moneys were not to go to the board to be expended in any way the members of the board thought fit.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
I was dealing with the distribution of these moneys as recommended by the commission set up in 1951. The suggestion was that stake moneys on the tracks should be increased; there should be a reduction of entry fees to owners and an improvement of the export trade, if necessary by the appointment of independent auctioneers to conduct auction sales; a grant to the Irish Coursing Club to finance schemes to help greyhound breeders and to any other scheme approved by the Minister which would be conducive to improving the greyhound industry as a whole.
Now in the report of the advisory committee on greyhound racing we have this £23,000 which would be collected by the board in the first year and the way in which these moneys are to be expended, it is suggested, is as follows: the salary of the chairman, £2,500; the salary of the secretary, £1,200; allowances to other members, £1,800; travelling expenses of members, £1,000; salaries of four stipendiary stewards, £2,000; travelling expenses of such stewards, £1,500; 18 to 20 track control stewards, £8,000; expenses of offices and secretariat, £5,000. That was a nice way to deal with this £23,000. This £23,000 would go to 23 people—£1,000 a year each. That is what the setting up of the new board means.
Mark you, the new board is largely composed of the standing committee of the Irish Coursing Club. Provision has now been made in the Bill to give a majority on the board to the members of the standing committee of the Irish Coursing Club. It is they and not the Minister who will be responsible. It is the Irish Coursing Club which will be responsible for the selection of the directors of the board which, in future, will largely control——
Is this relevant to the section?
We are dealing with finances.
We are dealing with levies on bookmakers' bets.
It is through the levies that they expect to get this £23,000, and those levies will be collected from the general public through the agency of the bookmakers.
I would take it that the argument on this section would be pro or con the levies.
I have stated I am opposed to the levy. I see no necessity for it. The Irish Coursing Club have valuable property already and, until such time as that property is either disposed of or taken over by the board, as it should be taken over, I see no reason why the general public should be asked to make this contribution in order to make up this £23,000 for the purpose of giving 24 people on an average £1,000 a year each. It is the general public which will have to make the contribution on its bets. The bookmakers make their contribution. Why not adopt some other method rather than that suggested by the Minister? Surely there are other ways in which this could be done? If bookmakers were asked to pay a fee, for instance, that would obviate the necessity of their having to go to all the trouble of book-keeping on the course in connection with small bets of 2/- and 2/6, calculating the 1¼ per cent. at 5 to 4 on and 6 to 4 on. Their task will be a difficult one.
A bookmaker would need to spend a little time refreshing his memory and he might get a new lesson or two in mathematics before he could deal with them. Why not adopt some other plan? Surely, throughout the country, the amount of money could be collected through charging more, for instance, for bookmakers' stands in particular places? On every course, whether racecourse or racetrack, there are certain positions that are more valuable than others and the people who are lucky enough or who are able to pay for them could pay a little extra rather than be asked to collect this levy from the public.
If we are to have that complete change in outlook regarding greyhound racing—and I believe we will have a complete change—why not introduce the tote only to the larger tracks and forget about the provincial tracks, to the two tracks in Dublin, the one in Limerick and Cork, for instance. If money has to be found for the board to help to supplement the State money collected through entrance charges or entry fees, surely the method I have suggested would be sufficient. Give the bookmakers a chance on the provincial tracks; do not ask them to pay this levy. Personally, I do not see what good it will do for the industry generally. The bookmakers down through the years have made it possible to have horse racing and greyhound racing; we must remember we shall have no greyhound or horse racing if we do not have a gamble. Nobody will bother, even though he may be the greatest lover of either sport, to go to see horses or greyhounds galloping if there is no gamble in it. It is the gamble that will induce the people to go, and you take away the gambling instinct of the people when you drive the bookmakers out. In my opinion, the introduction of this levy will go a long way towards driving the bookmakers out.
I am against this levy for several reasons. In the first instance I do not believe that the small bookmaker, as we know him down the country on the ordinary provincial tracks, has sufficient funds to meet commitments. Betting is not so heavy; farmers have not so much to gamble with as they had before they fell under the Minister's displeasure. Generally the money is not there. Furthermore I object to giving power to a team of people to say what the levy should be. We have seen the effects of such measures in the past under legislation brought in and passed in this House. I remember spending some weary hours afterwards endeavouring to take from certain sections of the community powers given to them by this House.
We can take the Cattle Insurance Act as one item. Under that we had the self-same powers that are given to this committee in regard to the levy proposal, powers without appeal. That Cattle Insurance Act actually drove some very decent cattle dealers out of business altogether—or very nearly so. We had to come into this House with an amendment to fight the vested interests behind the team of cattle dealers engaged in that insurance business. Now we are going to have a gentleman with £2,500 a year, more than the Minister has, as much as the Taoiseach has. He is the chairman of the team to be paid out of this levy, and he has a job a good deal softer than that of the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach has a tough job to keep all the warring elements together.
On this section, the salary of any person, whether it is paid from the levy or not, does not arise on this section.
What is the levy for, Sir?
That may not be discussed on this section.
Very well. We will leave it then. We cannot discuss it.
The Deputy may not misconstrue my ruling. Clearly, what the Deputy may discuss on this section is whether the levy ought to be paid by licensed bookmakers on course bets.
Would it not be in order to advert to what the money may be spent on, after it is levied?
The Deputy has more than adverted to it.
I do not want to go further than to point out what it is for.
There is nothing in this section as to how it may be used.
I would like to suggest that neither is there any mention here of what the percentage is to be. I suggest that that is not the end of it and that the control board which is referred to here will have the power of levying and of saying what the levy should be. If the chairman wants to double his salary he can, without reference to this House, put 10 per cent. or 15 per cent. on the levy on the bookmakers. He will then have double as much as the Taoiseach, and there is nothing to stop him.
Would the Deputy look at sub-section (6)?
The Deputy has read sub-section (6) which has nothing at all to do with it——
Read it again.
——anymore than the Ceann Comhairle tells me this has to do with the levy. There is no power here under which the levy is to be controlled; nothing but the sweet will of this team that the Minister will place in control of it. I think that the suggestion was made here that the Minister should withdraw this Bill and think it over again unless he has already appointed a chairman. I think that would be the best thing he could do. The only thing that sub-section (6) says is that "regulations for the purposes of this section shall require the consent of the Minister". There is no bother in getting that. Unless something which was done was called to his attention in this House, it might be five years before the Minister would know that it was in operation at all.
I object to giving any body of men the power of levying on any body of citizens, and of doing what I have seen done here before, driving them out of business. I notice that the Labour Party are very conspicuous by their absence this evening. What do they think of the number of people who are to be disemployed and driven out of business under this section?
We all know, any of us who go to the tracks, that outside of Dublin the amount collected on the ordinary rural tracks is not worth talking about. The ordinary citizen goes in there for a night's amusement, to see a dog run because it is a neighbour's dog. You will put these unfortunate people, the bookmakers, to the trouble of making up all these percentages so that they can work out whether, in the finish, they should collect twopence or three-pence. I would like to see some of the Deputies here taking on the job of making that up. That is what will happen and it is unfair and unjust to any body of men to put that obligation on them.
If I saw that this matter was to be put under some sort of definite control, I would not mind but that is not to be done. It will mean that the team taking charge can, at their own sweet will, increase the levies. If they do not increase them themselves, when the Minister for Finance finds his tail caught in the trap, as our own joker did a few weeks ago, he can come along and put another 2½ or 3 per cent. on to it. That is how this thing will be carried on. It is wrong and unjust to the ordinary citizen and to the particular section of the community that is to be driven out of existence by this measure. We all know what is happening as regards racing at the present day. We have seen it happen. I consider that, as far as this section is concerned, the best thing the Minister could do would be to withdraw it and reconsider the whole matter.
Question put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 64; Níl, 53.
Tá
- Barry, Anthony.
- Barry, Richard.
- Beirne, John.
- Belton, Jack.
- Blowick, Joseph.
- Burke, James J.
- Byrne, Patrick.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Carew, John.
- Casey, Seán.
- Coburn, George.
- Corish, Brendan.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Coatello, John A.
- Crotty, Patrick J.
- Crowe, Patrick.
- Deering, Mark.
- Desmond, Daniel.
- Dillon, James M.
- Dockrell, Henry P.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Manley, Timothy.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Michael P.
- Murphy, William.
- Norton, William.
- O'Carroll, Maureen.
- O'Connor, Kathleen.
- O'Donnell, Patrick.
- O'Donovan, John.
- O'Hara, Thomas.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- Dockrell Maurice E.
- Donegan, Patrick S.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, Anthony C.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finlay, Thomas A.
- Flanagan, Oliver J.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Hession, James M.
- Kenny, Henry.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Kyne, Thomas A.
- Larkin, Denis.
- Leary, Johnny.
- Lindsay, Patrick J.
- Lynch, Thaddeus.
- McAuliffe, Patrick.
- MacEoin, Seán.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Reilly, Patrick.
- O'Sullivan, Denis J.
- Palmer, Patrick W.
- Pattison, James P.
- Reynolds, Mary.
- Roddy, Joseph.
- Sheldon, William A.W.
- Spring, Dan.
- Sweetman, Gerard.
- Tully, James.
- Tully, John.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neil T.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Brady, Seán.
- Brennan, Joseph.
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Burke, Patrick J.
- Calleary, Phelim A.
- Carter, Frank.
- Childers, Erskine H.
- Colbert, Michael.
- Colley, Harry.
- Collins, James J.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Honor M.
- Cunningham, Liam.
- Davern, Michael J.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- de Valera, Eamon.
- de Valera, Vivion.
- Egan, Kieran P.
- Egan, Nicholas.
- Fanning, John.
- Flanagan, Seán.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Geoghegan, John.
- Gilbride, Eugene.
- Gogan, Richard.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hilliard, Michael.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Lahiffe, Robert.
- Lemass, Seán.
- Lynch, Celia.
- MacCarthy, Seán.
- McEllistrim, Thomas.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moher, John W.
- Mooney, Patrick.
- Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
- O'Malley, Donough.
- Ormonde, John.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Mary B.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Thomas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Mrs. O'Carroll; Níl: Deputies Ó Briain and Hilliard.
Question declared carried.
SECTION 33.
Question proposed: "That Section 33 stand part of the Bill."
Section 33 is a purely machinery section, virtually identical with Section 28 of the 1945 Racing Board and Racecourses Act.
It is quite true that the section is a machinery section, but the question arises in my mind as to whether it is equitable in its provisions. We have voted on this side of the House against Section 32, which empowers the board to impose a levy on course bookmakers. We have done that because there were some aspects of that which struck us as being unfair and unjust, in particular the one to which I have already referred—the prospect that the board, with the consent of the Minister, will accept the recommendation of the advisory committee to impose a levy of 2½ per cent. on bookmakers during the first year of the board's existence, the purpose being to provide the board with funds to establish the totalisator. This section proposes to give effect to that. I think it aggravates the injustice to which I have referred, because it imposes on the bookmakers, not merely the levy—which, of course, the House has now decided should be imposed— but it also imposes upon the bookmaker the responsibility for collecting that levy and the expense which he will necessarily incur in collecting the levy.
It is difficult to speak on the sections of this Bill without traversing or repeating something that has already been said. I have stressed the point that the majority of the people who engage in bookmaking on greyhound racetracks are comparatively small men. Many of them, unfortunately, are not men of a high degree of literacy. They are not men who are used to keeping accounts or making quick calculations. When they take a bet, they take it in terms of 7/- to 4/-. That goes down in the book and it does not require any great arithmetical skill to know precisely what is owed. In every case under this Bill, before the bookmaker pays out a bet he must make a mental calculation and must ensure that every penny of the levy which is collectable will be retained by him and subsequently paid over to the board.
That might be difficult for the most agile and most expert arithmetician among us in the hurly-burly of a racetrack, particularly when, as I have pointed out, the races follow each other in quick succession. I do not see how any bookmaker will be able to comply with the requirements of this section unless he hires or employs a very expert clerk. That will cost him a great deal of money. It creates a problem, undoubtedly, for the board. The board must ensure that the levy is collected. If so, then I think the board should defray the expense incurred by the bookmaker in assessing the levy in the first place and in collecting it subsequently.
There is no provision whatever in the section for a reimbursement to the bookmaker of the expense which he will incur in doing what is, in effect, the job of the board. I know it might not be an easy thing to devise some provision which would recoup the bookmaker the expense to which this section will undeniably put him. I will readily admit that. However, I do think that instead of the necessity for the levy being paid over to the board, as this section is intended to accomplish, the bookmaker should be entitled to deduct from the amount of the levy collected by him a sum equal to the expense which he has incurred and which is imposed upon him by this section. It is particularly important, I think, that that aspect of the provisions of the section should not be overlooked, in view of the provisions of sub-section (2).
Sub-section (2) is a penal section. It provides that if any person contravenes a regulation under the section or makes, in any record kept in pursuance of any regulation under the section, any false entry with regard to a course bet, that person shall be liable guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100. Just mark paragraph (b) of sub-section (2) which says:—
"makes, in any record kept in pursuance of any regulation under this section any false entry with regard to a course bet,"
I suppose "false" means untrue, deceptive or misleading, any inaccurate entry, whether or not it is made with the intention to deceive. Suppose a bookmaker made a genuine mistake. I will not ask the House to assume either that entries might not be made in error or that entries might not be made which were deliberately false. That bookmaker might be described as having made a false entry and that unfortunate individual, who has already had the unpleasant duty of collecting a levy of 2½ per cent. from his successful customers has, at the same time, in the circumstances which I have described, to risk the danger of being found guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £100.
Perhaps the Minister will say that his interpretation of the term "false entry" means an entry which is made with deliberate intent to deceive. I can see that is quite a reasonable construction to put on the words, but unfortunately, in the case of an offence of this sort, the onus is placed on the accused person to prove his innocence, since the fact that the entry is incorrect will be taken as prima facie evidence that it is a false entry. The unfortunate bookmaker, in order to exonerate himself, will be compelled to prove that, in fact, he made a mistake in good faith, that it was a mere slip in arithmetic or that his clerk failed to make a correct record. That is a very difficult position in which to put an unfortunate individual. I cannot conceive it possible for him to call any evidence to substantiate his case and to exculpate him from the charge of having made a false entry with intent to defraud the board.
In these circumstances there should be some provision made which will make the section less onerous and less expensive to the bookmaker. As I have said, it might be difficult to make a provision of that sort but I think the responsibility does lie on the Minister to try to meet the case which I am making. There are other circumstances to which I might refer, and the Minister might say to me: "This is no more difficult for a bookmaker at a greyhound racetrack than it is for a bookmaker standing at the Curragh." Of course it is very much more difficult. The greyhound race-meetings take place in the evening, often in artificial light.
With only ten minutes between races.
And as my colleague, Deputy O'Malley, says, ten minutes between the races. We all know the length of time that elapses between races at a horse-meeting; there is no such interval at a greyhound-meeting to permit a bookmaker to deal with this question of a levy in a leisurely way. He must deal very promptly, very hurriedly, with a number of people who are clamouring for their money. Any of us who have been at those race-meetings know how impatient the successful punter is to get paid.
They do not make any mistakes paying out. They never pay out too much.
We all know how impatient punters are on these occasions. Any fumbling and delay on the part of the bookmaker might quite readily lead to a brawl and disturbance for which, of course, the unfortunate bookmaker would be held responsible. I say, therefore, that the Minister's suggestion that we are not asking the bookmaker to do any more under this section than the bookmakers attending at the Curragh and elsewhere are required to do under the Racing Act, is not a very substantial argument in favour of the section. The circumstances are so radically different that the provisions which apply in one case can scarcely be made to operate in the other.
I suppose it is hopeless to ask the Minister, in the light of what I have said in relation to this section, to reconsider his attitude in regard to Section 32. If it were not for Section 32 these disabilities, these heavy responsibilities, would not be imposed upon the bookmaker. It will not be possible in the practical conditions which prevail at greyhound racing tracks to give effect to this section without doing a grave injustice to these men. I do not think that in the end the board would lose very much if the levy were waived. I suppose I would be slightly out of order in trying to reinforce what I have already said on Section 32. I would ask the Minister to look at Section 32 and Section 33 together. If he looks at them in the light of what I have told him about the conditions which prevail on the greyhound tracks, I have some hope that he will decide that, since it would not be easy to operate Section 33 in a rational way, and since unless Section 33 is operated it will not be possible to ensure that all the levies are collected, he will forgo the levies and allow the bookmakers to carry on until such time as the totalisator finally extinguishes them.
This section, of course, was drafted by the Deputy himself or his colleague who was then Minister for Finance. It is copied from the Bill which became the 1945 Racing Act which was enacted by the Deputy's colleagues when they were in office. He says that was designed for application in the sedate atmosphere——
In the daylight.
There is no comparison.
I cannot accept the view that all bookmakers attending greyhound tracks are illiterate.
I said only some.
I understood the Deputy said they were illiterate men.
Many of them.
I do not think many of them are illiterate.
He said that the standard of literacy amongst some was not high.
They seem to me to be a very rational, respectable type of men, any I met with, and as well able to add as are the Deputy and myself. In fact, I would venture to say that the vast majority of them are very much better able to add, subtract and divide. I cannot see that the ordinary greyhound racing track in this country is inadequately illumined and that the business of greyhound racing and wagering thereon is carried on in Stygian gloom where nobody can see what he is doing. I am not swayed by that argument. I cannot accept the proposition that while at the Curragh, if there is a difference between a wagerer and a bookmaker, decorum and rational disputation will ensue whereas, if, at a greyhound racing track such a difference arises, the imminence of riot will be upon us. I understood the Deputy to say turmoil and brawl might break out.
We have seen them.
The Deputy says he has seen them. All I can say is that I do not apprehend that conditions obtaining on the greyhound racetracks will be what the Deputy describes as conditions of imminent riot in Stygian gloom between illiterates.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
The plain proof is that this is evidence that, in the method employed by Deputy MacEntee in debating this purely machinery section, his purpose is to prostitute the process of a democratic Parliament for the purpose of obstructing, because the Party of which he is a member, having had the report on which this Bill is founded in their hands for close on three years, refused to submit a Bill to deal with the greyhound industry to this Oireachtas. Now, that the Bill is before the House, they can find no more substantial issue than the machinery section, a section which they themselves drafted and which is lifted in toto from the Bill they themselves enacted, and they reject it on the ground that bookmakers on greyhound racing tracks are illiterate——
That is not so.
——that the tracks are unilluminated so that the bookmakers cannot see and that the patrons and bookmakers may, therefore, become involved in disgusting brawls——
The Minister is twisting what was said.
Order!
——in contradistinction to the dignified calm and decorum of the Curragh, which the Deputy had in mind. That is what is wrong with Deputy MacEntee.
What is wrong with the section?
He thinks the common people who frequent greyhound racing tracks cannot be expected to attain to the standard with which he is familiar on the Curragh.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
Nemo me impune lacessit.
I think these people are the same kind of people that most of us in this House are, no better and no worse. I do not think it is a pretty sight to see Deputy MacEntee purporting to look down his nose, metaphorically speaking, in contempt at the illiterate habitués of the greyhound racing track.
That is misrepresentation.
I thought the Deputy would be ashamed to hear his colleague's observations repeated. But they were made and they are on the record; and these are the grounds on which Deputy MacEntee seeks to condemn the machinery section which his Party thought appropriate to the Curragh. What other reasons did he provide? What other reasons did he advance as to why the machinery section appropriate to the Curragh is not appropriate to Harold's Cross, to Shelbourne Park, to Limerick or to Cork? Because on the Curragh there is literacy—even Latin, such as Deputy O'Malley has favoured us with in his Horatian interjection. But at Shelbourne Park, there is nothing but illiteracy, gloom and brawl. Now, perhaps Deputy O'Malley would favour us with his apprehension in regard to the illiteracy and brawling which is likely to manifest itself if the machinery section——
In due course I will give the House the benefit of my observations.
——of the Fianna Fáil Act of 1945 is applied in 1956 to the greyhound racing business at Shelbourne Park——
There is no comparison between greyhound racing and horse racing.
——at Harold's Cross, at Limerick and at Cork.
Forget the Stygian gloom.
I advert only to what Deputy MacEntee had to say and I note, with satisfaction, that some of his colleagues are already getting uncomfortable in finding themselves constrained to defend his disedifying animadversions.
Sir, we have listened——
He would not let Deputy O'Malley in. He would sooner try to cover that flank himself.
——to the meanderings of a disordered imagination. I did not use the phrase "Stygian gloom". Neither did I say that the bookmakers are illiterate. But I do know the difference—apparently the Minister does not—between a horse and a greyhound.
One has a jockey and the other has not.
And that is the Deputy's conception of agriculture——
I know the conditions which prevail at a race meeting held in the daylight——
——the difference between a horse and a dog.
——with a comparatively long interval between each race and the conditions which prevail in another type of race meeting which is held very often in the evening in artificial light. Apparently the Minister, who is in charge of this Bill, does not know the difference between these two types of function. The Minister, with that sort of snobbish superiority, held up his hands when we were discussing Section 32 and proclaimed to Heaven that, thank God, he was not like other men, that he was not one of the hoi polloi who go to greyhound race meetings. He confessed that he knew nothing about the sport and that the last occasion—and I assume the only occasion—upon which he was on a greyhound racetrack was in 1932.
The Minister, completely ignorant of the conditions which obtain on greyhound racetracks, instead of addressing himself when he rises to the serious arguments that have been advanced on this side of the House, emulates the type of lower schoolboy at a neophyte's debating society by a speech such as we have just listened to. While the Minister may find matter for gibing and jeering at in this section and in this debate, this section is a matter of serious import to those who are bound under penalty to comply with its provisions. That is why we have tried to inform the Minister, so that he will appreciate that a section which might be workable and practicable in the Racing Act will not be workable in the conditions which will obtain in those enclosures to which Section 33 is supposed to apply.
I did not say anything about Stygian gloom. I said that these events were often held in the evening after sunset in artificial light. I suppose O'Connell Street is one of the most brightly illuminated thoroughfares, not only in the City of Dublin but in any city of Europe. Let any person walk down O'Connell Street to-night and he will see bright spots of dazzling light on the pavement, but between these he will see dark patches of shadow.
Very like this debate.
A bookmaker at a dogtrack has to operate in conditions very like those——
The lights do not go out, anyway.
——and he has to operate very quickly. As Deputy O'Malley told the House and tried to explain to the Minister, there are six races, and sometimes seven, in the evening at these tracks, and the interval between the end of each race and the start of the next is about ten minutes. It may be a little longer. In that period a bookmaker, standing up with people around him, has not merely to enter the bets, not merely to pay out to those who have made winning bets, but he also has to make a very rapid calculation.
I was saying—and I am certain— that the general body of the fraternity would not deny that the standard of literacy among some of these men is not very high. Up to this, it did not have to be very high. If they could read and write, they could enter bets in terms with which they were familiar, but it becomes quite a different matter when they have to levy, assess or compute a percentage upon those bets. That requires a great deal of mental agility and a degree of ability that is not easily found.
They have a clerk for that.
Order!
How is that reasoned argument on behalf of the bookmakers dealt with by the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister who has the responsibility for this Bill which is imposing these disabilities upon the bookmakers? He gets up here and he alleges that I said that all of the bookmakers were illiterate persons. Sir, the Rules of Order bar me from characterising the Minister's statements accurately and precisely but those who heard me speak and heard the Minister speak afterwards might very well wonder if the Minister knows the difference between right and wrong, between truth and falsehood and whether falsity does not more often characterise his speech than veracity.
There is no blame, in the circumstances in which many of our people have grown up to manhood over the last 30 or 40 years, attaching to the man who has not had the benefit of public school education like the Minister, whose parents have not been so well-endowed that they were able to send him to a university. There is no blame whatever attaching to a person who, because of his boyhood circumstances, finds he is not as well-equipped to deal with clerical transactions as more fortunate and better-circumstanced persons might be. Indeed, when a person so handicapped creates an independent position for himself, uses his talents to the best of his ability to provide for himself and his family, he is entitled to the highest degree of consideration. When I said that the standard of literacy amongst some of these men is not of the highest——
We will have a commission on it.
——I did that, not scoffing at them, not jeering at them, but pleading for them, asking the Minister to take that particular disability into consideration and not to impose upon them responsibilities which they might find it very difficult to discharge. The Minister cannot ride away from his responsibilities under Section 33.
The Minister approves of the section. I trust that he did. I trust that he read the section before he put it to the House. Some of us are wondering whether he read the Bill at all in view of the attitude he has taken. If he did, and if he approved it, all I can say then is that it is doubtful whether the Minister knows the difference between a horse and a greyhound, and between a racecourse and a greyhound track. The conditions that exist on a greyhound track are as different from those which exist in a racecourse as the difference between a horse and a greyhound. The Minister has, on several occasions, when questioned as to the suitability of some of the provisions of this Bill, harked back to the Racing Act and said "This section is taken from the Racing Act." What a confession coming from the Minister that is in charge of our primary industry. Is it any wonder, in the light of that confession, that our cattle prices are tumbling?
Surely we cannot have that on this section.
And that our agricultural industry is stagnant. We are debating the incompetency of a Minister who is not able to conceive a section for himself and who has to go and take second-hand goods out of the Racing Act. The Minister is yawning.
Would you blame him?
The Minister must have been somnolent when this Bill was put into his hands, and when he said to his advisers, "What does this section mean?" and he was told, "It is all right, Minister. It is taken out of the Racing Act." That is an Act which was passed by this House years ago, but Rip Van Winkle has been sleeping all that time and thinks that circumstances in the year 1956 are just as they were in the year in which the Racing Act was passed. He seems to think that the provisions of that Act, which were acceptable to the House then, can be taken and applied, without the changing of a comma, to quite a different sport. I say that the fact that the Minister has lifted this section out of another Act does not add to its merits and does not make it any more acceptable to the House. It merely condemns the Minister out of his own mouth with the sloth, indolence, and incompetence which he has applied to this Bill as he has applied these qualities to the agricultural industry of this country.
I find all this rather amusing, especially the remarks of Deputy MacEntee regarding the abilities of a bookmaker's clerk. Did Deputy MacEntee ever notice the agility of a bookmaker's clerk and is he aware of the fact that a bookmaker's clerk can make a calculation much more rapidly than Deputy MacEntee can? Is he aware that these calculations resolve themselves into simple matters of addition and subtraction? This is parliamentary codology, based on Section 32 of this Bill, which Deputy MacEntee insists on bringing forward for no other purpose than that of deliberate obstruction. Does he not know that after the first few nights of these calculations every bookmaker's clerk in Dublin and in the provinces will know automatically what is the sum payable on every single bet? Does he not know that the thing is completely mechanical? Is it not true that every bookmaker in Dublin will rise to this and is it not his business to see that there is no Stygian gloom about the piece of paper on which his clerk makes his calculations? If there was, should he not produce a flash-lamp and dissipate that gloom?
Bookmakers' clerks are the most agile-minded people in this country, and Deputy MacEntee knows that as well as everybody else if he has gone to the dogs as often as, speaking metaphorically, he has been going to the dogs here for the last 20 years. This is parliamentary codology and obstruction based on the merits of this section which is part of the machinery of Government. There is no Party who subscribed more to that machinery of Government than Fianna Fáil when, all through 20 years of office, they applied that machinery of Government to putting a man in the wrong when he was in the wrong.
Twenty years.
I am not good at figures.
The latter remark of Deputy Donegan would give one seriously to think. A Deputy here says that he is not good at addition and subtraction. How then could we expect an ordinary bookmaker's clerk to be more efficient than he is?
Deputy Corry rose.
Deputy O'Malley will resume his seat. Deputy Corry is in possession.
The trouble seems to be that Ministers, since they were appointed here the last time, seem to have set up a little college of their own. They wake up and have ideas and their whole trouble seems to be to find out how little they can do for the pay they are getting. That is what is wrong with the Minister over there. The Minister took the whole of the section out of the previous Racing Act, not knowing and not caring about the difference between horse racing and dog racing.
I make one suggestion to the Minister. I do not know whether the Minister considers that the ordinary bookmakers' clerk has got the same education that he got, but I will give him a little docket and let him try to make it up. Let him take this:—Untamed at 15 to eight; Quarto at five to one—
Is this in order?
Royal Star did not go at all; Royal Sauce, no place betting; Swanland Boy, won at six to four; Entente Cordial, no place betting; Cockrullah, one to two; All My Eye, four to six; Dilettante, eight to one. There are ten horses for the Minister.
Acting-Chairman
I would ask the Deputy to deal with the section.
I am giving an example of the particular job the unfortunate bookmaker is supposed to do.
Under this section.
Acting-Chairman
That does not matter. The Deputy may not give details. He should deal in a general way with the section.
I am putting that up as an example of what the Minister expects the bookmakers to do in a quarter of an hour.
Acting-Chairman
There is nothing about that in the section.
Yes, there is, Sir.
Acting-Chairman
No.
The bookmaker has to enter in the prescribed manner particulars of all the course bets, retain the records, make up the sum and charge the levy under this section. I am telling you what he has to do. Forty-five bob each way cross doubles, 1/2, and a 120 each way trebles, 1/2. The Minister can make that up at his ease and then he can see the kind of job he has given the bookmaker to do. Is the Minister serious? Did he even read the Bill before he brought it in here? Those are ten horses picked out of to-day's racing returns and those are the bets. The last was only 8/1. Make up 2½ per cent. on that. How much will he be charged before he leaves the race-track or the dog-track? In the dog-track you usually have seven races. That would be 21 cross doubles and 66 trebles. The Minister can "have a go" at that.
I suggest when he finishes on that job, to make up for his laziness, he take a stroll between Dungarvan and Clonmel. There he will find a little monument to a greyhound called Master McGrath, which won the Waterloo Cup three times. That dog did more for dog racing and agriculture than the Minister did in all his life.
Acting-Chairman
I would ask the Deputy to come to the section.
I am dealing particularly with that section. I am giving the Minister ten races and I am asking him to make it up. He expects that the bookmaker must do it or else be fined £100 under this section. Let the Minister do it. He has got £2,500 a year. That is more than the bookmakers ever got out of the game. Let the Minister make it up and give us the result. My trouble with this Minister, and with all the Ministers over there lately, is that they are so damn lazy. The Minister admitted that he took this section out of the Bill for horse racing. In horse racing there is a half an hour between each race, which gives them some chance to make up bets.
There is not in evening racing.
In evening racing the poor devil is in an even worse position. Dog racing is on at night time. The longest period between any two races is a quarter of an hour. Will the Minister undertake to make up that ticket or any ticket like it in a quarter of an hour, and make it up in regard to the particular levy, be it 3½ per cent. or 4 per cent., that has to be put on it? Unfortunately, we of the agricultural community have been brought into such straits by the Minister lately that we have to fall back on the dogs and the horses. Now, after following the pig with one levy, he is following up the greyhounds with another levy. It is not fair. No human being could make up a levy like that, and dockets like that occur every night in the dog track.
I suggest that Deputy Tony Barry would take the Minister up to Shelbourne Park for a couple of nights and let him see how the game is going. He would learn there that this section does not suit the business. That section should be changed completely, unless the Opposition or the chief Party in the Coalition want to make jobs for all the briefless lawyers, who could go down to the Police Court and defend the bookmakers.
Acting-Chairman
I would ask the Deputy to restrain himself. There is nothing about briefless barristers in this clause. The Deputy should confine himself to the section.
The bookmaker is taken to the courts for not complying with this section. He may be fined £100 and, if he appeals, he gives a job to some of those boys. That is the job that the Minister has given to the unfortunate bookmaker under this section. The section was brought in to cover horse racing, where you have only one race every half-hour, and it was not brought in to cover dog racing. The Minister was so damn lazy that, instead of having a section prepared for this Bill, he brought in this one and threw it in like that. That is what has happened. I suggest that the Minister should take it out, take it home and sleep on it. Let some Deputy over there take him to the dogs for a couple of nights and let him have a look for himself. If he does, he will not come in here and make such an idiot of himself by putting forward the like of that.
Listening to the different speeches from the Opposition, it is very hard to know what they are getting at. I go to the dogs regularly because I have a track in my own town and I know the position. I want to see the greyhound industry put on a proper, sound basis.
Hear, hear!
That is the principal thing behind the Bill. These amendments and so on are only so much balderdash.
Hear, hear!
They are talking about horse racing and about the dogs. You would imagine that, just because the dogs run at night, they were running in the dark and that the bookmakers cannot make up the bets. They are paid here for an English race immediately after the race. There is no delay at all.
A dog race?
A horse race.
There is a bit of difference.
I do not see any difficulty in my town as far as delay or hardship is concerned. The bookmakers' clerks are good educated men. The majority of them are solicitors' clerks and they do this work in their spare time. It is a reflection on these men for Deputy MacEntee and other speakers to say that they cannot make up the bets they have got. They have the right to know if there will be any improvement in an industry which is an important one for them, for the small farmers and the workers who keep dogs. The interests of these people are not being served by the holding up of this Bill. If the Opposition want to serve these people they should let the Bill go through. After all, I think it is a good thing for bookmakers to have horse racing and dog racing by night. In that way, they have the double event. All this shedding of crocodile tears by Deputy MacEntee and others of the Fianna Fáil Party is so much balderdash.
Does the Deputy agree with the levy on bookmakers?
They are trying to sabotage the interests of all these people. Deputy O'Malley is very worried about the bookmakers. I am sure he is. The bookmakers are all right. I am not here to defend them because they are well protected. They will not make any mistakes when they are paying out. I do not see them giving away any "fivers" too much. There is no need to worry about these people at all. This Bill should be let through in the interests of the industry. The people outside want this Bill to go through. That is why I support it.
Deputy O'Leary said the people want this Bill. Our anxiety has been to make this a good Bill. That is why we put down those amendments. It is much better to make it a good Bill, if possible, rather than have another Government coming in with an amending Bill as will be necessary if this scrap goes through On the section, the board may make regulations for securing the payment of levies and generally for carrying the provisions of this chapter, in relation to levies, into effect. We have put down an amendment to that.
You have not.
We have an amendment down to Section 33.
You have not. We have now reached the stage where the Deputy does not know what he is talking about. There is no amendment to Section 33.
I am dealing with Section 33.
Acting-Chairman
When I took the Chair the House was dealing with Section 33, not Section 32.
What then is the Minister talking about?
Acting-Chairman
There is no amendment to Section 33.
The section deals with the collection of levies and the imposition of levies.
It does not.
It deals with the method by which these levies are to be collected. The regulations have been prescribed under which the bookmakers are responsible for the collection of these levies. The bookmakers are expected to keep records of every bet they take. Not merely are they to keep records of these transactions, but they are obliged to have these records inspected, to submit records of these transactions to the board.
Not under Section 33.
The Minister does not know what is in the section.
The Minister must not have read the Bill.
Sure he only took it out of your Bill.
Out of the Racing Board Bill. Under the section, the bookmaker is obliged to submit his records to the board for inspection. He must submit records of all his betting transactions, whether they deal with greyhound racing or horse racing. I presume these records are contained in one book, in one ledger or whatever it may be. The board may demand that this book be submitted to them. They have the right, according to this section, to examine transactions that have no relation to greyhound racing. That in itself is sufficient reason for the deletion of this section. Under it, you are empowering the board to inspect a type of transaction which they are not legitimately entitled to inspect. The members of the board which the Minister has designed are the ex-members of the Standing Committee of the Irish Coursing Club. They are the people the Minister will appoint to control the industry, the people who, for 25 years, have been in control of it and who have made it a complete failure.
What about the Fianna Fáil members?
They have been a complete failure. Deputy Barry, who has just left the House, was one of the people who sat in judgment and signed a report. Is he not aware that every section in this Bill is contrary to the wishes of the people who made the report? We are told this Bill will make the greyhound industry better than it was in the past and one that is capable of being built up and expanded in the way in which it should be.
As I said earlier, before I had to give way to Deputy Corry, it was very amusing to hear an educated man like Deputy Donegan state that he was not competent to subtract, divide or multiply to a certain extent. How then, in the name of goodness, can he attack Deputy MacEntee for suggesting that the rate of literacy, comparatively speaking, is not very high among a certain section of the greyhound fraternity? Obviously Deputy Donegan was brought in here for his nuisance value, just as Deputy Coogan is thrown into these debates to interrupt the Opposition. While, in the Minister's eyes, Deputy Donegan may appear to be a very efficient Deputy, I am afraid his logic has not been very impressive to-day.
I do not want to embarrass Deputy Donegan when I state that the ordinary runner or clerk employed by a bookmaker is as wide as a gate. How many Deputies could calculate 2½ per cent. of 13/4? Even the Minister would not answer that very quickly. I do not think Deputy MacEntee was far away from the mark when he suggested that, comparatively speaking, the rate of literacy in certain sections of the greyhound fraternity was not, due to no fault of their own, very high.
Acting-Chairman
Would the Deputy comeback to the Greyhound Racing Bill?
He will keep away from it.
Perhaps Deputy O'Leary does not realise we are dealing with a very serious matter which, as the Taoiseach said this morning, vitally concerns a very important branch of the agricultural community— the small farmers—a statement which, of course, some of us took with a grain of salt. Deputy Lemass once remarked that he conceded that the most intelligent man on the Government Benches was Deputy O'Leary. We all subscribe to that view.
Hear, hear!
Would Deputy O'Leary be interested to know that his Party had a most relevant motion down to-day under the names of Deputy James Larkin and Deputy Mrs. O'Carroll on a section appertaining to the section under discussion, but for some obscure reason that was withdrawn, and all day long—and I have been in the House since 10.30 this morning—I have been wasting my sweetness on the desert air——
Acting-Chairman
I would remind the Deputy we are dealing with Section 33.
Section 33 is before the House and it is to that section I am alluding.
Acting-Chairman
The Deputy is referring back to other sections.
I am referring to Section 33 which deals with the onus which is being placed on bookmakers and their assistants, to use a favourite expression of the Minister for Agriculture, to become prostitutes of the Revenue Commissioners in the Stygian gloom, perhaps. The Minister may as well face the position that there will not be any levy collected by the new greyhound board because the bookmakers have no intention of acting as tax collectors. It will not be worked.
They will not go on strike again.
They are not inspired by political motives like Deputy O'Leary's colleagues when they threw themselves down on O'Connell Bridge and outside Leinster House.
Acting-Chairman
Would the Deputy please come to the section?
This is not a political action. The Bookmakers' Association, as we all know from the deputations we have had to both sides of the House, are non-political in their outlook. They have not the slightest intention of subscribing one fluke to the Greyhound Board if this levy is imposed. They will just quit betting on the tracks. There will be no more bookmakers at Shelbourne Park, Harold's Cross, Limerick or Cork, which are the four main places concerned.
What about Wexford?
Your track in Wexford is not licensed at all.
That is not so.
Acting-Chairman
Would the Deputy please address the Chair?
I am sorry. I was pointing out the effect of Section 33.
There will be no bookmakers according to the Deputy.
There will be no bookmakers, according to me and according to Deputies on the Government side of the House, at the four tracks I have mentioned. Perhaps they will bet at the flapper tracks but that is no concern of this House. We are speaking about licensed tracks under this Bill. The Minister has chosen in his wisdom to refer to the Racing Board Act of 1945. I wonder has the Minister read the speech he made when that Act was introduced here, because very many of the sections were criticised by him. He told us in very polite terms what we should do with certain sections but we did not carry out his suggestions. They are now part of the legislation of this State. I want to point out— and I draw to your attention the fact that the Labour Party has one sole representative sitting on those benches —that if Section 32 is brought in along with Section 33 then the unemployment position among the greyhound fraternity will be very serious indeed. Before there was any question of a levy the bookmakers' assistants' representatives made representations to the greyhound advisory committee that if the totalisator was brought in the consequences would be very serious for them due to the unemployment of their members. They made representations to that committee to recommend in their findings that their members, if they lost their jobs, should get priority when the totalisator was brought into the tracks. There was no mention of the levy at that time. Now a levy is envisaged of 2½ per cent. in the first year and 1¼ per cent. thereafter.
Who pays the levy? Is it not the punter?
It is not the bookmaker. It is you and I and the ordinary man in the street who pays the levy, but where else in the world would a bookmaker be asked to act as a tax collector on behalf of the State? Then we get the usual cliché which has been thrown back at us since the Second Reading of the Bill was moved on the 14th December last year: "It is like the Racing Board Act of 1945." There is no comparison between horse racing and greyhound racing. If you go out to Shelbourne Park the first race may be at 8.30, the next race at 8.37, with intervals of seven or ten minutes between each race. What chance has the ordinary bookmaker's clerk of computing the proper amount of the tax? As I remarked previously, the life will be frightened out of these unfortunate clerks waiting for the officials of the new board, with their famous stumps of pencil, to come around to try to justify their existence by prosecuting some unfortunate clerk to a bookmaker. It is about time the Minister made himself aware of the position. It is about time that the Minister and his colleagues would cease misrepresenting the attitude of this Party on this very important subject. There is no question of delaying tactics. There is no question of obstruction on the part of those on this side of the House.
No, not at all.
No, that is correct and let Deputy Crotty be honest and support us on this side of the House when we ask the Minister to give due deliberation to the section on which the whole future of the greyhound industry hinges. Festina lente.
What has that to do with the levy?
Acting-Chairman
Section 33 is under discussion.
I would like to tell Deputy Donegan the levy is not under discussion. I have not the Bill before me but I have a photographic memory. Section 33, I think, deals with the method of collection.
I would like to see that album with the photographs in it.
Later. To get back to the point. There are no delaying tactics on the part of this side of the House. As the former Minister for Agriculture, Deputy Walsh, Deputy MacEntee, Deputy Briscoe and my other colleagues have pointed out, we are fully aware of the importance of the greyhound industry to this country. But we are conscious——
Acting-Chairman
I would like to remind the Deputy that this is not a Second Reading of the Bill. This is Section 33 on the Committee Stage. The Deputy is dealing with various matters that do not come within the ambit of that section.
I submit I am entitled to the same latitude which was afforded to Deputy O'Leary when he generalised on the whole position of the greyhound industry. Once again at 9 o'clock, and we have been here since 10.30 this morning trying to hammer a little sense into the Minister, I repeat that we, on this side of the House, are willing to have an all-Party meeting on the controversial sections in order to take them out of what has unfortunately been introduced by speakers on the Government side, namely, political acrimony. If the Minister likes to look back on the debates he will see that, in relation to certain sections of the Bill—I admit he was in better humour then than he is now: it was not one of Stygian gloom—he was prepared to let them go to a free vote of the House. Why the sudden change? It is quite obvious that he knows now that the entire Labour Party will vote against certain sections.
This section has reference to regulations for the payment of levies on course bets.
Yes, the collection of levies.
The only thing I want to say is—it may not be important, but it is relevant—that the Deputy is not dealing with the section.
With all due respect, I was qualifying a statement before the acting-Chairman left the Chair.
The qualification seems to be a good deal longer than the statement.
The Labour Party had certain amendments down dealing specifically with Section 33, the section which is now before the House.
There is no amendment at all to Section 33.
Dealing with Section 33 itself and the collection of the levy by the bookmakers——
I have told the Deputy there is no amendment at all to the section.
I beg the Chair's pardon. We are talking about Section 33.
That is what I want the Deputy to appreciate.
I was pointing out to the House that the Labour Party had certain amendments down——
To Section 33?
I want to make a little progress.
I would like to help the Deputy to make a little progress. That is the reason I am asking him to confine himself to Section 33. He is referring to amendments to Section 33. There are no amendments to that section.
I bow to the Chair's ruling on that point. We are so keenly interested in this Bill and there are so many controversial issues, including this Section 33, that I would ask the Minister again in relation to every section, from Section 33 onwards, to go back to his orginal intention and allow a free vote if he is not prepared to have an all-Party meeting on these controversial sections. What could be fairer? It is scurrilous to suggest that the Fianna Fáil Party is obstructing the Bill.
This Section 33 is one of a number of sections in Chapter II of this Bill, The side heading reads: "Regulations for payment of levies on course bets." This is one of five sections dealing with levies. I suggest, with all due respect to the Chair, that these sections are all interwoven.
Section 32 has already been decided on by the Dáil and the discussion on it may not be reopened now.
No, but a reference back——
The Deputy will please listen to me. He has asked me to make a statement. Section 33 is before the Dáil for discussion, and nothing else.
I accept your ruling. Section 33 provides for the making of regulations in relation to the payment of levies and generally in relation to the carrying out of the provisions of this chapter in so far as levies are concerned.
On a point of order. Is the Deputy entitled to read the section of the Bill?
The Deputy is not reading. He can refresh his memory.
I just want to refresh my memory on this. For the benefit of those on the other side of the House who have not yet read the section I will refer to certain points in it. Sub-section (a) requires bookmakers, who are liable to pay levies, to enter, in the prescribed manner and at the prescribed time, particulars of all course bets in the prescribed record. In the prescribed manner, in the prescribed time and in the prescribed records; it is quite obvious that this sub-section must have reference to some other section or sub-section in this series of sections. Bookmakers have to enter in the prescribed manner the prescribed particulars and they must do it in the prescribed time.
Who will prescribe all these things? It is not the Minister. It must be the board. The board will prescribe and we have no doubt at all but that the board will prescribe that bookmakers will do all these things in Section 33 at the time the bets are made or at the time the bets are being paid. There is no doubt about that.
Under sub-section (ii) they will retain the records for the prescribed time. Now prescribed there again means prescribed by the board, we take it. Whether the period is long or short—it may be for years—they will have to retain these records.
Under sub-section (iii) they will have to send, on the request of the board, the records to the board for their inspection. The bookmakers will have a lot of things to do—the small little bookmakers that we talked about on the previous section, the men with scarcely any property in this world. They may have their bags and their board and their box and a small amount of money, but they have no property. Nevertheless they will have to do all the things that are set out in this section.
They will have to furnish copies of the record to the board at such time or times as may be prescribed. It will not do just once; under sub-section (iii) they will have to send the records to the board for inspection and under this sub-section they will have to furnish copies of the records as often as the board may demand or as often as may be prescribed by the board.
Under sub-section (b) the board may make regulations for the supply, use and supervision of levy paid betting sheets and the making of refunds in respect of unused or partly unused such sheets. I suppose they will have to furnish these to the board too.
Sub-section (c) deals with entering into arrangements by the board with and taking security from bookmakers desiring to pay levies on the basis of returns furnished by them. Under this sub-section they must give security to the board, these little bookmakers about whom we were talking a short time ago.
Sub-section (d) deals with the granting to bookmakers by the board of remissions or refunds (as the case may require) of a levy in cases in which the whole or any part of the contingent liability of a bookmaker in respect of a course bet made, laid or otherwise entered into by him is shown to the satisfaction of the board to have been transferred to another bookmaker by means of a fresh bet made, laid or otherwise entered into by the first-mentioned bookmaker with the second-mentioned bookmaker.
On a point of order, is the Deputy entitled to read a complete section for the purpose of delaying matters?
Can the Deputy not hear me? This means that the board can give back portion of the levy which they have taken in the wrong if the bookmaker has laid off the particular bet. Deputy Donegan will understand that. The small bookmakers have many things to do under this section. These small bookmakers went in and pleaded before the advisory committee, of which that respected member of the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Barry, was a member, before any legislation came before this House that they should be treated fairly and that the advisory committee should advise the Minister for Agriculture to deal fairly with them in this Bill. Instead, it is quite obvious that if they were going to be levied on bets under the previous section, they have to make all kinds of returns to the board under this section.
They have to do that at present.
It is quite plain, as I said before, that the object is to wipe out those bookmakers because they could not do all that is laid down under Section 33. It is clear that the Minister knows this. I say this much: it was just pure, cussed laziness on the part of someone—and that someone must be the Minister—that this section was lifted out of the horse racing Bill. Any rural Deputy sitting behind the Minister could have told him that it could not be operated in regard to dog tracks even if it is workable in regard to horse racing. The Minister suggested on a couple of occasions during the day that we were obstructing the passage of this Bill——
That is true.
——but we are as concerned, as the Minister himself would be, to have this Bill enacted and made law. This is going on since last December. It is the second major Bill dealing with lotteries and betting to come to this House since it assembled last October. I am surprised that the Minister is not anxious to get agreement from this side of the House, and have an agreed Bill which could be quickly passed. Instead, the time of Dáil Éireann was taken up because of the crooked attitude adopted by the Minister. If any measure ever came before this House that should be non-controversial it is this Bill——
But you are making it political.
There is no question of politics in it but the Minister wanted to make political capital out of it in some way because he has——
Would the Deputy please deal with the section?
——stubbornly adhered to his own ideas and has no use for the views other than his own. Section 33 is the one which I am pointing out is unworkable. Even at this late stage, after all the time that has been wasted——
Hear, hear!
——by the Minister because of his attitude on this Bill, may I suggest he should withdraw the Bill and have it redrafted so that we will have a Bill that can be approved and which will get through this House in 48 hours? Only last Thursday, we had the Minister for Industry and Commerce appealing to the Opposition to come to him if they had any particular viewpoint to express on any piece of legislation and he would use his good offices——
Clearly, the Deputy is not dealing with the section, and he knows that.
I am trying to keep as close as I can to it.
The Deputy is not endeavouring to keep as close to it as he can. The Deputy is making general statements and is not dealing in any specific way with the section. If he does not deal with the section, I will have to ask him to resume his seat.
I had got down as far as sub-section (2) of this section which says:—
"If any person—
(a) contravenes a regulation under this section, or
(b) makes, in any record kept in pursuance of any regulation under this section, any false entry with regard to a course bet, that person shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds."
In all the legislation that has passed through the House over the years a fine of £100 was very seldom provided. The usual fines ranged from £5 to £10, £15 or £20 and it was probably during the emergency that this House suggested that any person might be fined £100. Now, if a small bookmaker makes a mistake, or his clerk makes a wrong record, which is discovered afterwards, that poor man may be fined £100. There is not much encouragement for a bookmaker to go to a dog track any more.
There is one redeeming feature if you like and that is in sub-section (3) which provides:—
"Regulations for the purpose of this section shall require the consent of the Minister."
Either the Minister will consent or object to the regulations made by the board. When regulations are once made everything set out in this section can be operated and if proof were needed we can see that bookmaking on greyhound racetracks under that section will be an impossibility for ever more. There is no doubt about it; bookmaking must come to an end. The situation was bad enough under the previous section, but this section makes it so difficult that no bookmaker could continue to operate.
Wait and see.
This is a section dealing with the collection of the money by the bookmakers and in my opinion we are being rather hard on this section of the community in making it a penal offence if bookmakers do not collect the money required under the Bill. Some two hours ago I dealt with the tax; now we are dealing with the collection of tax by the bookmakers and with the penalty that can be imposed for not collecting it. A number of these people are not equipped to do this job, or not as well equipped as they might be. For one thing they have to deal with the ordinary tax; now they have to deal with the special tax. I feel there should be some other method of raising the money without being too hard on a section of the people who, in my estimation, are not able to bear it.
Poor fellows.
That is right; a number of them are poor fellows. I feel the Minister's advisers should be in a position to advise him on this particular Section 33. Indeed, if I might say so, it is followed up by Sections 34 and 35 which prescribe what penalty can be put on a bookmaker if he does not conform to the regulations.
While I am personally anxious to see that this Bill should go through this House and that it should be a good Bill, I am also anxious about the individual bookmakers who are to suffer under the legislation that we are passing here. We cannot be just with the whole community unless we are just with the individual. We are dealing with individuals here, a group of them. Surely it is not beyond the resources of the Department of Agriculture and the numerous advisers of the Minister to bring in legislation here which will give the board enough money to carry on the work that this Bill requires of it without penalising a section of the community that is overtaxed already. That section of the community is the bookmakers. Not alone are we taxing them but we are compelling them to toe the line and, if they do not do that, they are to be fined £100. I would say that that is an injustice. I would say that they are thoroughly unsuited to have an obligation of that kind put upon them. I feel that this House, and the Minister and his advisers should be in a position to have some other means of getting the money than by doing it in this way.
Not alone have the bookmakers to do this, but they also have to deal with competition from the totalisator and, for that reason, I must speak against what I feel is an injustice to this section of the community. I feel that this regulation will be responsible for a lot of unemployment and it is a pity, when this Parliament introduces legislation of this kind, that the framers of such legislation could not introduce it in a way that would not penalise a section of the community for the benefit of another section. I feel that Section 33 is an injustice to the people I am defending and they are the bookmaking community.
We have spent a long time on this section and I do not propose to inflict myself on the House for any length of time. I have merely risen to ask the Minister will he not give some consideration to the arguments by which we have been attempting to demonstrate that this section will be unworkable? Whether it will be workable or not, it will impose a great deal of expenditure on small people who can ill afford to defray the cost of complying with this section. If the Minister would assure us that he would, on the Report Stage, bring in an amendment to reimburse the bookmakers for the expenses which they will incur in collecting the levy on behalf of the board, he would go a long way indeed to meet us. I am sorry the Minister is not here. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary will be in a position to answer for him.
I would feel happier about the section, and the effect of it, if I thought the board would reimburse the bookmakers for the expenses they will incur in complying with the requirements of this section.
There is another point to which I would like the Minister to attend also. The penalty which is prescribed under sub-section (2) of the section is a very heavy one. As Deputy Allen has pointed out to the members on the opposite benches who have taken the trouble to listen to the debate it amounts to no less than £100. I hesitate to believe that Deputies responsible for this legislation have noted that fact.
That is a maximum.
You know what happens with revenue penalties. The maximum penalty is the one that is imposed. When I was Minister for Finance from 1932 to 1949 I had, on many occasions, to deal with the cases of bookmakers who had been guilty of an offence similar to that which is created by this section. Many representations were made to me on their behalf. Inevitably, I found that the maximum penalty, in that case £100, had been imposed and I had no power to mitigate it, even though it was quite clear to me that the unfortunate devils who had been guilty of the offence had forfeited their sole means of livelihood. I know the difference between those who follow the occupation of bookmaker and those who attend the greyhound racing tracks. The majority of the latter are all small men who can ill afford to go to race meetings. They have been caught up in this game and they are there because of circumstances.
I do not want to condone any breach of the regulations of which they might be guilty, but I do want to feel that this section is enforceable and that it will not impose an obligation on people which they cannot fulfil. Therefore, I fear that many people are going to be caught out under sub-section (1) of this section. I feel that there will be many people who, unwittingly, will have made false entries in their records. The difficulty in their case will be to prove to the satisfaction of the court that these entries have been made unwittingly and without any intention to deceive.
The penalty which is provided for under sub-section (2), the penalty of £100, is a heavy one. As the section stands at the moment, there is no power to mitigate that penalty. I have two suggestions to make to the Minister. One is that the maximum penalty should be reduced to, say, £50. The other is that the Minister himself should take power to mitigate the penalty which the court may impose in any case when the Minister, in his own good judgment, feels it to be excessive—excessive in relation to the resources of the man upon whom it is imposed.
These are the three suggestions which I would submit for the Minister's consideration. As I have said, if he can see his way to accept them, a great deal of our dislike of this section will be removed and a great deal of the objections which we find in it will be overcome. The first suggestion, if I may repeat it, since the Minister was not present when I made it, was: would he introduce on the Report Stage some provision which would compel the board—I think I had better use the word "compel"—to reimburse the bookmakers for any expenses which they may legitimately incur in collecting the levy? I know that that might not be very easy to draft, but it would be possible, say, that the Minister might say that the bookmakers would be entitled to retain some fraction of the levy, say, one fifth, to re-inburse them for the expenses which they would incur. That has two merits. It will enable these people to carry on, I think, without undue hardship.
The second one is that it will, perhaps, enable the board to enforce more strictly the regulations, because they will have the assurance that the people who have to comply with paragraph A, sub-section (1) are not doing it gratuitously for the board, but that they are being recouped for the expenses to which they may be put.
The second suggestion I make is that the amount of the penalty provided in sub-section (2) might be reduced to £50; and the third one is that the Minister should take some powers to mitigate a penalty in any case in which he is convinced that the penalty, even for a deliberate offence, is excessive in relation to the resources of the bookmaker upon whom it is imposed.
If the Deputy had made these suggestions at the beginning instead of the end, we might have got somewhere. I will begin at the last of the Minister's three suggestions, that is the suggestion in regard to powers of mitigation. I think that such powers are generally vested in the Minister for Justice in respect of all such offences.
I doubt that. I would be glad if the Minister would look that up.
I have no hesitation in saying that, if there is not such a general power, I will have no objection to such a power being created in this Act. But one has to bear in mind that the general principle ought to be that the fixing of a maximum penalty should be left to the discretion of the appropriate court which tries the offence. There is available to the judiciary discretion to give the defendant the benefit of the Probation of Offenders Act, if he believes it was a relatively insignificant offence, or to fine him 10/- or £1, or even 1/- if he thinks it is no more than a technical offence, and generally to use his discretion in matters of that kind.
I think it is a sound principle to say that the power of mitigation is a power that the Minister should rarely use once the matter is before the courts, bearing in mind that the defendant always has the right to appeal to the Superior Court from a decision that he feels unduly harsh. There is always an appeal from the District Court to the Circuit Court in any criminal prosecution for a statutory offence or a Common Law offence. But I will certainly examine that suggestion.
In regard to the amount of the fine, if the Deputy felt strongly that the maximum of £100 was excessive, I would not hesitate, if the Deputy pressed that view, to reduce it to £50. There is no desire to quibble with anybody. The desire is to provide that, where a person flagrantly seeks to defraud the board by making a contribution which is not what he is obliged to contribute in comparison with all his colleagues in the bookmaking profession, he shall be suitably penalised. If the Deputy presses that strongly, I am prepared to reduce it.
In regard to the third proposal, that the board should pay the cost of collection, I do not think that is a reasonable proposal for the reason that the only place that the board can get the revenue to do that is from the proceeds of the levy. We have given the undertaking that, if the bookmakers consider that 1¼ per cent. should be the maximum levy paid, we will so provide. If you provide a higher levy, you simply provide the extra revenue from which all such concessions could be made. The whole object of the scheme is to secure for the board sufficient revenue to enable it to do the work it has to do. Anxious as I am to meet the Deputy in any reasonable proposal, I am sorry that that is a proposal on which I cannot meet him.
In regard to the desirability of providing a third recourse for a defendant, after he has appeared before the courts in the first instance and exercised his right of appeal, and the ability of the Minister to remit, if that power is not vested in the Minister for Justice under his general powers, I will certainly seek to incorporate it in this Bill or to give to myself or the appropriate Minister the power the Deputy suggests.
I do not wish to delay or to debate this matter any further except to say I am glad the Minister is prepared to meet us in some respects. I would very much like that the penalty should be reduced from £100 to £50. I am glad to accept the Minister's assurance that he will verify that, in fact, the Minister for Justice has general power to mitigate a monetary penalty, and if he should find that that is not the case in relation to this particular penalty, that he will bring in an amendment to ensure that the power of mitigation can be exercised.
Subject to the reservation: unless I find that that is violating some fundamental principle of the law.
We do not want the Minister to do that. I agree with the Minister that this mitigation of penalty should be exercised only on the rarest occasions, but I have particularly in mind the fact that very small people may find themselves in difficulties by reason of that. That is really all I am concerned about.
The other point I wanted to make— the Minister might see his way to meet me—was that the board might recoup or reimburse the bookmakers for the expenses incurred by them in collecting the levy. I do not think we have really threshed out the merits of that suggestion. I think it could be done very simply and I do not think it would be impossible to achieve; neither do I think it would place an impossible burden on the funds of the board. However, as I have said, we have not yet had a chance to make the case for it in any great detail. What I propose to do is to vote formally against the section when it is put to the House, because I think the section will be found to be impracticable, and to reserve the right to bring in an amendment on Report Stage which would enable us to discuss, perhaps on a more suitable occasion, the practicability of recouping the bookmakers for any expense they may incur under this section.
Question put and declared carried.
SECTION 34.
I move amendment No. 22:—
In sub-section (1), line 41, before "bookmaking" to insert "greyhound".
I move this on behalf of Deputy Walsh. I do not know whether the Minister has considered this amendment. I think it is of fundamental importance. The section, as it stands, reads:—
"An authorised officer of the board may (subject to the production by him if so required of his appointment) at any time enter any premises in which the business of bookmaking is carried on and there search for, inspect and take copies of or extracts from any documents there found relating or believed by such authorised officer to relate to course bets entered into by the person engaged in the said business and may require any person found in such premises to produce all documents in such premises relating to such course bets."
The point there is that a very wide power is given to the authorised officer of the board to enter any premises in which the business of bookmaking is carried on. I have a fundamental objection to the section. We desire in this amendment to limit these powers of entry to those businesses in which greyhound racing only is carried on. I do not anticipate that the Minister will have much difficulty in accepting the amendment. We may, perhaps, have some discussion then on the section.
The difficulty here is that the levy attaches to course bets only, the bets made on a greyhound racing track, but the records relevant to such betting transactions may well be kept in the office of a bookmaker who would be engaged in other transactions, and thither the officer of the board must have recourse in order to inspect those records of course bets. The officers of the board have the power to enter only bookmakers' premises, because it might well mean that a bookmaker who did no office betting in regard to the transaction of his business on tracks would bring back to his place of business his records. You could not say his permanent office was a greyhound bookmaking premises because it would not be a greyhound bookmaking premises. It would be a bookmaking premises, but, in fact, a premises in which he carries on no greyhound bookmaking business. It would, however, be a premises where he could ordinarily keep the records of his greyhound track transactions. Thither the officers of the board would have to have the right to repair to inspect those records. Really, I feel sure the Deputy does not imagine that any abuse might herein lie. The officers of the board are statutorily confined to bookmakers' premises, to which they will be required to repair for no other purpose than to inspect records of greyhound track bookmaking transactions.
I think the Minister has made a point but it is not a point in support of the section as it stands.
Might we deal with the amendment at the moment?
It is not a point in support of the section as it appears in the Bill. The Minister's case is—and I agree there is substance in it—that a person may not actually carry on the business of greyhound bookmaking in his office, that he may confine his activities to the track. I do not want to commit myself at the moment. I concede that in the case of such a person the board might feel they should have power to examine his records and, for that purpose, have to enter premises occupied by him, even though these premises were not occupied by him for the purpose of carrying on the business of bookmaking on greyhound racing. They might be occupied by him for carrying on a general business of a bookmaker. As I say, there is substance in that point, but, if so, it seems to me that the phraseology of the section lends a different principle to it. I am not addressing myself to the merits of that principle. I suggest that the Minister might word the section in this way: "To enter any premises in which the business of bookmaking is carried on by any person who"—I am just trying to phrase it—"holds a licence or a permit from the board." I am trying to find a form of words——
Might I interrupt the Deputy? What he is trying to do is to confine the entry of the officer to the office of the bookmaker who has at least got a track licence, but one of the difficulties which might well arise is that the officer of the board might have a legitimate reason to believe that a bookmaker not licensed to bet on greyhound tracks had in fact been betting on greyhound tracks. It would therefore be necessary to enter his premises for the purpose of searching for and requiring production of his records to establish that fact. It might arise that the officer of the board would have a duty to inspect the records of a licensed bookmaker who held no licence from the board to bet on a greyhound track. It is for that reason we seek to retain the power for an authorised officer of the Greyhound Control Board to enter any bookmaker's premises in search of evidence that he has been transacting betting business on a greyhound track. It is a power that I imagine would be very rarely used. Could we dispose of the amendment first?
I withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed: "That Section 34 stand part of the Bill."
On the section, it seems to me that, having disposed of the amendment, the fundamental objection remains and I think that my point of view is strengthened by what the Minister has just said in respect of the amendment. I think it is unprecedented that we should authorise the officer of a statutory board to enter the premises of any individual who has no association in this case with the activity which the statutory board has been set up to control and administer. I think the Minister will find that this section, if it is challenged in the courts, will be held to be repugnant to the Constitution. Why should an officer of the Greyhound Industry Board be authorised to enter the business premises of a bookmaker who has no licence or permit from the board to operate on a greyhound racing track at all? It is carrying the right of search far beyond what has ever been contemplated.
I think the case made by the Deputy in respect of that part of this section has a good deal of force and I would like to look at it again, that is, regarding the entry of premises where the person is not a registered greyhound bookmaker. In the meantime perhaps the Deputy would think about an amendment and put it down on the Report Stage to remedy the defect which he sees. I shall examine the section again and put forward an amendment in the same sense.
I am prepared to allow the section to go through on the undertaking that it will be recommitted on the Report Stage. I am very unhappy about giving any officer of this board the right to enter premises of another person. It seems to me the board ought to be content with the powers which would be conferred on it by Section 35. They ought to be wide enough. It is not that I want to protect any person who is guilty of an offence under it. I want to preserve the ordinary privacy of a person's business premises.
I want to safeguard from extenuation, to put it that way, so far as I possibly can, the constitutional rights of the individual in this country. That is why I am prepared, in order that we might make some progress, to allow the section to go through if the Minister will undertake that we shall have the right to recommit and discuss it. I would ask the Minister to consider very carefully the terms of Section 34. I am perfectly certain if he were on this side of the House, and I were to bring in a proposal of that sort, he would resist it very strongly and criticise it very cogently.
I shall look at it again.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 35.
I move amendment No. 23:—
In sub-section (1), line 3, to delete "authorised coursing meeting" and substitute "at any authorised coursing meeting or in the precincts thereof".
This is a drafting amendment on the same lines as Nos. 28, 29 and 30.
Amendment agreed to.
Question proposed: "That Section 36, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
I cannot see any objection to it. I think the officer will be quite entitled, where he suspects a bookmaker of not fulfilling the conditions of his permit, to ask him to produce the documents for inspection.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 36.
Question proposed: "That Section 36 stand part of the Bill."
Perhaps we could have some explanation from the Minister as to what exactly he has in mind here? May I read the section and perhaps I shall be able, as I go along, to point out my difficulty in regard to it? The section reads:—
"(1) The board may, after consultation with the club, make regulations providing for—
(a) prohibiting persons from performing specified functions, or specified classes of functions, at authorised coursing meetings save under and in accordance with permits granted by the board at its discretion,
(b) the making by the board of charges in respect of the grant, retention or renewal of permits."
I do not see any objection to (b). With regard to (c), the attachment of conditions to permits, I do not know whether there is any limitation or restriction as to the character of the conditions which may be attached to permits. The next sub-section (d) deals with the suspension and revocation of such permits. Sub-section (e) prohibits persons performing specified classes of functions at authorised coursing meetings from having any beneficial interest in bookmaking at such meetings or in the ownership of greyhounds participating in events forming items at such meetings: there is no objection whatsoever to that. Sub-section (f), the refusal of entries for events forming items at authorised coursing meetings in the case of greyhounds in respect of which disqualification orders under Section 45 of this Act are in force; there is no objection to that.
The only paragraph on which I would like to have some information from the Minister is that in relation to the prohibiting of persons from performing specified functions, or specified classes of functions, at authorised coursing meetings save under and in accordance with permits granted by the board at its discretion. I assume that means only persons licensed to act as starters and judges could act at these meetings, or does it apply to any other class of persons? One can understand that the starters and judges must be licensed and authorised by the board but then, again, there are other people who will be engaged, like kennel men and so forth; there are cloak-room attendants. The question is as to whether or not the power given under (a) is too wide, particularly as these regulations will not be subject to the consent of the Minister.
This arises out of a recommendation in paragraph 143 at page 59 of the advisory committee's report. It is designed to provide that the control board may prescribe the qualifications necessary on the part of all officials connected with coursing and racing and grant suitable candidates for these posts licences which will render them eligible for appointment. It is anticipated that this procedure would apply to stipendiary or supervising stewards employed either by the executive committee of the Irish Coursing Club or the board itself, as well as to managers, graders, judges, timekeepers, hare drivers and stewards connected with coursing events.
I cannot imagine that the board, which I would hope to be acting in the closest co-operation with the executive committee of the Irish Coursing Club, would try to attach conditions to the employment of relatively minor personnel, such as cloakroom attendants and so forth. I would suggest to the Deputy that the underlying theme of all this legislation is that, subject to certain essential safeguards, we would give this board power to supervise the day-to-day finances of the greyhound racing and coursing industry through the Irish Coursing Club. We should not seek unnecessarily to regulate their every act. I must proceed on the assumption that, in regard to matters of this kind, the board will proceed with reasonable prudence and stipulate that there shall be qualifications for certain types of officials at a coursing meeting where it is appropriate that such qualifications should be stipulated, such as in the case of a stipendiary steward, a starter, or something of that kind. I think I must proceed on the assumption that a responsible board, on which the Irish Coursing Club itself will be adequately represented, will not make or prescribe vexatious qualifications for simple servants who should not really have any specific qualifications stipulated for them at all. I think, however it is both appropriate and suitable that the board should have the power to insist on certain minimum qualifications for a stipendiary steward, a starter, a hare driver or a timekeeper. I do not think we need apprehend that any abuses will ensue from the giving of such a general power.
Notice taken that 20 Deputies were not present; House counted, and 20 Deputies being present,
I would like to draw the Minister's attention to a discussion we had earlier to day with regard to an ad hoc court of appeal in relation to bookmakers. Does the Minister not think that there is a necessity under this section to have some body to which people could make appeals? This goes further than merely engaging a person who is qualified. I can quite visualise a particular body saying they will not engage so-and-so. If a person is found qualified and is subsequently either suspended or dismissed, surely that person will have a grievance. There might be some doubt as to the merits of the decision and, from that point of view, the aggrieved person should have some body to whom he can make an appeal. I do not think we can legislate here to give a body, such as the board which will be set up here, all power over the lives and the limbs of their employees with no appeal on the part of the employees.
I am sure the Minister will agree that something must be done to remedy that position. If he likes, another ad hoc body can be set up. After all, there could very easily be a suggestion that a particular individual should not occupy a certain position because his third cousin owns a dog which is racing on that particular track on that particular day. That might be a very good way of getting rid of an individual. Would the Minister not consider this point between this and the Report Stage? Asking him to consider something is not, I am sure, unreasonable.
I shall consider anything. I shall consider that but, truth to tell, I do not think this is a case in which an appeal is necessary.
Does the Minister not realise that what I have suggested could arise?
Under Section 36?
Sub-section (a) gives the board the right after consultation with the club to make regulations providing for prohibiting persons from performing specified functions and so on, and the granting of certain permits——
Look at sub-section (a):—
"prohibiting persons from performing specified functions, or specified classes of functions, at authorised coursing meetings save under and in accordance with permits granted by the board at its discretion."
Again, suppose I qualify under one of these regulations and I am given a permit, under sub-section (d) there is a regulation which would enable the board to suspend or revoke such a permit.
I see the point the Deputy makes and I am prepared to examine that.
Does the Minister see the point I am making?
Yes; therefore there must be some form of appeal.
And the Minister must examine that.
I will.
That is all right.
But I want to be perfectly honest with the Deputy. I am not saying I shall introduce an amendment.
If the Minister says he is prepared to examine it, I took it he was prepared to introduce an amendment but, however, I take it there will be nothing to prevent my bringing in an amendment?
Exactly.
Before that section is put I would like to say that my point is somewhat different from that of Deputy Briscoe, and perhaps my approach to the problem would be different also. I think that the power given in paragraph (a) of sub-section (1) is much too wide. I think that there should be some clear statment as to the classes of persons to which it will apply. I mean we should not, in a matter of this sort, hand over to private individuals the power of prohibiting persons from doing certain work. That is what it amounts to. Let me be quite clear about this and I am not challenging the necessity for the——
Could we not do a deal on the managers, graders, judges, timekeepers, hare drivers, stewards and stipendiary stewards?
Yes, if the Minister were to introduce an amendment setting out the classes of persons which the board may prohibit from performing certain functions at coursing meetings, that would go a long way to meet the case.
I will do a deal then on the basis of managers, graders, judges, timekeejers, hare drivers and stewards. Now the report put in "etc." but we will leave it out.
The list of persons whom the Minister has specified would go a long way to meet me. There is only one other thing, and again it comes back to my objection to the section. Sub-section (2) creates an offence. It states:—
"If in relation to an authorised coursing meeting, there is a contravention of any regulation under this section, the person holding the meeting shall be guilty of an offence, and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £50."
I think the Minister should look into that sub-section again. There should be some provision made—the person holding a coursing meeting might be deceived. A person might come along with a permit, perhaps even a forged permit for all one knows, and the person holding the coursing meeting might, in good faith, allow him to function. I think there should be some further consideration given to sub-section (2). Personally, I would also like that these regulations should be made with the consent of the Minister. That is a great safeguard. We cannot have bureaucracy proliferating all over the place and we cannot give bureaucrats almost absolute power of control but that is what is to happen under this Bill and under this section as it stands.
I should like to see the Minister—it will not always be the present Minister for Agriculture—I should like the responsible Minister mentioned in this Bill to have responsibility pinned on him in some way for the actions of the board under this section, and it can, of course, be pinned on him if the regulations are made with his consent. The Minister says he is quite convinced that the board will not act in an unreasonable way. Lots of us have made mistakes of judgment in matters of that sort which we have bitterly regretted later. I do not think we should proceed in a matter of this kind on the assumption that the board would always act in good faith if the board is to be allowed to go its own sweet way. That is why I think it would be a great safeguard for everybody concerned if the Minister were to introduce an amendment on the Report Stage stating that these regulations must be made with his consent. I am sure his consent will not be needed except on perhaps one or two occasions, the first being when the board is making the regulations governing the classes of persons which the Minister himself has detailed to us and perhaps on another subsequent or rare occasion when these regulations may have to be modified. I should like to ask the Minister to consider the point which I have made.
I shall consider the point.
On this section I want to add that some members of the standing committee of the Irish Coursing Club feel there should be an appeal if any individual among those referred to here by the Minister were penalised. It was suggested to me that in a case of that kind the Minister might consider, say, the District Court. Members of the Irish Coursing Club have mentioned this to me. If the Minister gave that permission in that section I think it would be fair to all concerned because I feel, as Deputy MacEntee rightly said, that mistakes could easily be made. We are all human and prejudices exist and even the standing committee of the Irish Coursing Club pointed that out at that time. They felt it was only right that some court of appeal should be left open.
It may be all right to say that the board will consist of exceptionally decent men—I am sure it will—but nevertheless a board may err and I believe the individuals to whom the Minister referred should have some protection and some method of appeal. The case may arise where a particular track owner, manager or steward may have at one time or other annoyed some members of the future board or of the board that will be appointed when this Bill becomes law and that member may be anxious to get his own back by using his influence, but if he knows this individual has the right to appeal to an impartial court he will be very slow to do anything that should not be done.
I feel that it will call for good operation of the regulations if it is known that every individual has the right of appeal to an impartial court. I do not want to make it impossible for the board to operate but if the board feels that any man, holding a responsible job, has the right to appeal to an impartial court, let it be a District Court or some other court, whichever the Minister may cite as the court of appeal, I think it will make for impartiality.
I should like the Minister to be a little more precise in regard to the suggestion which I made to him which was that, generally, the board could only make regulations with the consent of the Minister. I should not like to allow this section to pass without getting, if I could, an undertaking from the Minister that, on the Report Stage, he would bring in an amendment to provide for this concession. I put it to the Minister that it will not impose any undue obligation on him and we would regard it as a great protection.
The right of appeal from a decision of the board to suspend or revoke a permit is a more difficult matter. We want to have this board, as far as possible, an autonomous body, able to act on its own responsibility.
Hear, hear!
The unfortunate thing is that there is a feeling in some minds and among some sections of the community that favouritism has influenced the actions of the board in respect of certain undertakings.
The board has not been constituted yet.
We all have a feeling that certain persons will be on that board and, unfortunately, these gentlemen are associated in many minds with certain, shall I say, restrictive practices, in the past. That is why Deputy P.J. Burke is so concerned about paragraph (d) which gives the board the right to suspend and revoke permits. It is also the reason which actuated Deputy Briscoe in raising this matter.
I can see that the board, for the proper control of those who are licensed to act at coursing meetings, should have the power to suspend and revoke permits. It would be impossible for them to see that these coursing meetings were properly conducted if they had not that power, but, unfortunately, as I have said, the atmosphere which has been created around the past activities of members of the club has caused a degree of suspicion which makes people rather anxious to ensure that these powers of suspension and revocation will be exercised impartially and effectively. I do not know how the Minister could fully meet me on this point but perhaps he would consider it.
The point with which I am really concerned is that the Minister should provide that the regulations be made only with his consent. I hope that the Minister can give me a specific and definite assurance that he will, on the Report Stage, bring in an amendment to cover that and, so far as I am concerned, I would readily accept Section 36.
I will meet the Deputy by specifying the categories of cases.
I would like the Minister to go a little further.
I would meet the Deputy by naming the categories of cases. I will look at the problem raised in paragraph (d) as to whether it is practicable to provide for an appeal, but I do not want to set up tribunals all over the place to deal with every trivial little matter. I would ask the Deputy not to press the suggestion with regard to the control of the Minister. If we did that, we would bring back to within the province of the Minister for Agriculture the whole supervision of this business. I do not want to invest the Minister for Agriculture with the obligation of supervising coursing in this country. We have got to set up a control board in which we will have confidence. Do not, in the excess of your zeal for safety, create a situation in which, in the last analysis, Dáil Éireann is to run the coursing business. Our aim ought to be to set up a competent control board which will supervise the whole thing. Once you insert the provision that anything must have the approval of the Minister anyone can ask a parliamentary question and you bring back the whole thing on to the floor of Dáil Éireann.
Can the individual appeal to the Minister?
I shall examine the position with regard to a special tribunal for appeal.
What happens if a particular case is submitted?
I shall examine the question of providing a way of appeal.
Even if, in the last analysis, it will be to the Minister?
No. It would have to be an independent tribunal of some sort. I shall examine the possibility of doing that. I would ask the Deputy not to press me on the other matter because that would bring the whole greyhound industry back on the floor of Dáil Éireann.
Our reason for pressing this is because of the past history of the people responsible for the issue of those permits. The board will be a continuation of the old standing committee of the Irish Coursing Club and we have, in the report of the advisory committee which dealt with the Irish Coursing Club, the statement that there were many cases of fraud connected with greyhound coursing over the last number of years.
Will the Deputy report progress and leave well enough alone?
Progress reported; Committee to sit again.