The matter I wish to raise on the Adjournment with the Minister is the matter of compulsive gambling and its connection with the social welfare system. I intend for the record to say a few words about compulsive gambling. I will describe what kind of a disease it is and the fact that it is a disease. I have done some research into it.
Compulsive gambling is, first of all, a very debilitating disease. As I have said in other places, to ask a compulsive gambler to stop gambling is the same as asking somebody with two broken legs to get up and run. That is the only way I can describe it because the Department of Social Welfare look upon compulsive gambling as a sort of self-inflicted occupational hazard and therefore, they will not recognise it as an illness. Compulsive gambling is a disease which causes lack of control over impulses, lack of impulse control. It is a progressive behavioural disorder in which the individual has a psychologically uncontrollable preoccupation and urge to gamble. That is precisely what the disease is about — an urge to gamble which is uncontrollable.
It is also a disease which goes through the same identifiable type of development and stages as other diseases of addition. It goes through three main stages. First of all, it is the same as any substance addition: it goes through the high phase, big roller, the big wins. The analogy would be with the person shooting up heroin; it is all good times, good story, it is all "a high". It is a good feeling and it is "a high". In terms of the next stage of the illness — it is precisely the same with alcohol addition or with substance addiction and with many other diseases of addition — there is what is loosely referred to as the roller coaster stage, the ups and downs, the excitement, everything moving and the thing moving on. That is the second stage of the illness of compulsive gambling.
The third stage is the stage which people know most of all. The third stage is the "low" where you hit ground, when the compulsive gambler hits the ground and in fact is there for keeps. It is at that stage the family falls apart, that the personal life falls apart, that the person's job or vocation is threatened. It is at that stage that the gambler uses all sorts of subterfuge in which to take or dip into family finances — pawning, stealing, rearranging finances, dipping into the overdraft, increasing the overdraft. Finally, at the work stage, perhaps, if it is a job which involves handling of money, getting involved over his or her head with an amount of money which he or she is not able to give back. Very often if somebody is involved in a club or in some other outside activity, because the disease of compulsive gambling is one that actually facilitates the person to be very clever and to get into situations where money becomes available, the result may be the same.
That is the way the disease develops and I think people are fairly well informed about it. It is a disorder of impulse control. In other words, it is not just a case of "Why does this person not stop gambling?" I spoke to one of these people, who had been cured and is now in a highly responsible job, and he has been in a highly responsible job for years. Sometime recently he had occasion in the course of his job to walk into an amusement arcade. He told me he was shattered by the experience. It was his first time in one for something like five years. He said that the flashing lights, the sound of the machines, the jingle of the money and the stuff going in and out made him feel totally out of control while he was there. This is a man who has not gambled for years and he lapsed — as it is called — on that day. But it was only for a day and, thankfully, it did not affect his job. However, I want to explain that.
What does it do? There is very much a power thing involved. There is this feeling of power, this feeling of excitement, this feeling of intense arousal and it leads to irrational thinking, the thinking that "I will win". There is this irrational approach and, finally, there is this great sense of being part of the action. This is the sort of feeling that people go through. That is all I wish to say about the actual disease itself, but I want to get across to people that this lack of emotional control, this interference with normal functioning, this lack of control over normal impulses is a disease. It is an illness and it has been defined as an illness and accepted as an illness by many different groups. It has been so accepted by the American Psychiatric Association for years; it is now included in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders of the association and so on. It is accepted by the VHI as a disease or an illness for which they will recompense people after due claim.
This brings me very closely to the point at issue and to the problem this is creating in the social welfare system. The best way I can explain it is to give an example. This happened to a person I talked to. I discussed this matter a number of times during the week with officials of the Department of Social Welfare and I would like to put on the record that they could not have been more helpful. They pointed out to me the difficulties they were acting under and the problems the law presented for them. We also have a duty to identify the problems with the law and to get a commitment from the Minister or from the Department to do something about it.
The problem is this. We have an anomaly here and the anomaly is simply the withdrawal of social welfare payments of various kinds — disability benefit scheme, assistance, pay-related or whatever — from unemployed persons who suffer from gambling addiction or compulsive gambling because they voluntarily enter a rehabilitation and treatment programme for compulsive gambling, which is an illness as I have pointed out. We have arrived at the ridiculous situation where the Department of Social Welfare claim that compulsive gambling is not an illness but some form of a self-inflicted condition —"inflicted" is probably the wrong word — which people lead themselves into. We could describe a lot of things in that way. We could say the same about syphilis or many other illnesses, where people act on a particular impulse that is not controlled at the time.
Compulsive addiction is a most serious behavioural disorder and is recognised as such by doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists and is recognised as an illness by the VHI. The Rutland Centre which treats this complaint is one of the hospitals for which the VHI will pay or will meet claims. Society sees compulsive gambling as a huge problem. From Donegal to Dublin it is a topical issue which is discussed time and time again. Families suffer because of its effects. Society sees it as a huge problem. Compulsive gamblers are regularly dismissed from their jobs because of problems created by the illness. In fact, everywhere it is seen as an illness by people in general but it cannot be seen, because of present legislation, as an illness by the Department of Social Welfare. It gives rise to an untenable anomaly in the operation of social welfare payments.
Take an example; a worker is dismissed from his job because of his compulsive gambling habit — that is the first point. The second point, after some time on pay-related benefit he is offered a job by a sympathetic employer on condition that he takes treatment and is cured of his illness. After enrolment for a course in the Rutland Centre, which will be six weeks or more, all social welfare payments are stopped. The sort of perverse logic that supports the withdrawal of the payment is as follows: because compulsive gambling is not accepted as an illness the claimant is not entitled to disability benefit. Therefore, that is disability benefit gone out the door.
The second reason is that because the claimant cannot be "available for and/or actively seeking employment" while he or she is in the clinic, the claimant is then not entitled to unemployment benefit or such other benefits attached to unemployment. Therefore, we are now in a situation where the person cannot involve him or herself in rehabilitation treatment without losing six weeks' income. The person cannot afford to do without six weeks income, does not do the course, continues gambling, and the net result is that for the rest of his or her natural life is receiving unemployment assistance or other appropriate assistance from the Department of Social Welfare when he could be working. Where is the logic of a job lost, a family shattered, a man on the scrap-heap because the Department of Social Welfare refused to accept the reality which is so clear to the rest of the population?
That is just one aspect of this matter. It leads to other things as well. It leads to people, because they are now aware of the fact that they will not be entitled to benefit while they are participating in a programme in some place like the Rutland Centre, becoming dishonest, tampering with medical certs, giving the wrong reason to the Department of Social Welfare, putting down a stress-related illness or depression or something else instead of the illness of compulsive gambling. In terms of honesty, the single most important element of honesty that is demanded of such persons is when they decide to change their lives on an issue like this, and to start off on a lie takes from the whole value of it.
In my discussions with the Department of Social Welfare during the week it was pointed out to me, quite reasonably, by the people concerned that they were sympathetic to the problem but that they were, in a sence, caught by this accident of legislation — I do not believe it can be any more than that — or in some way stymied by the fact that certain medical officers were not prepared to accept it as an illness. As far as the Department were aware, people had not lost out. I know that information was given to me in good faith and I accepted it in good faith, except that this afternoon I got further information on this issue. I have here before me a number of letters and one of them to a doctor by a named official in the Department states:
Dear Doctor——
I am writing with reference to the above-named person. You have given medical certificates for him for an incapacity described as addiction to gambling. However, addiction to gambling is not regarded as an incapacity under the social welfare Acts and Mr. ——— has been advised that payment of disability benefit cannot be made on these certificates.
I have a letter to another person which states:
... please note that "compulsive gambling" is not regarded as a specific illness or incapacity under the social welfare Acts.
That is again signed by a named official. I have two or three more. I spoke to a man today who went through precisely the same procedure. He lost his job because of compulsive gambling. His brother who was involved in another industry was prepared to give him another start in a similar kind of job provided he took treatment and got rid of his habit. I checked this out just some hours ago. This man went into the Rutland Centre and before going into the centre he contacted the Department of Social Welfare and got back a similar letter saying that compulsive gambling was not an acceptable incapacity etc. etc. and he was not entitled to benefit. The only reason that man was able to go through the course — which he did very successfully sometime early last year — was that his brother and his brother's family and the rest of his own family gathered round and supported his family for the six weeks he was in there.
My objective here is not to embarrass the Department of Social Welfare. I just want to point out and highlight a real difficulty. I am not talking about any kind of a scam and I do not want the Minister to come back to me in a defensive way. I know what the problems are; I think I have stated them. What I want to hear is how the Department tend to approach it and how the Department intend to respond to it. Will the Department be prepared to say that this anomaly which has developed because of old legislation is something that must be addressed? Can it be addressed by ministerial orders? Does it need a change in legislation? What do the Department intend doing about it? Those are the questions I ask the Minister?
