The Charities Institute of Ireland has written to its 280 member organisations encouraging them to raise the alarm with politicians concerning the financial impact of The Gambling Regulation Bill which is due to enter one of the final legislative debate phases in the Dáil on Wednesday next, 10th April.
Member organisations include Cancer Fund for Children, The Alzheimer’s Association, Epilepsy Ireland, The Breast Cancer Research Institute and DEBRA Ireland which was the focus of an extensive report by Gript’s Maria Maynes.
The Charities Institute says that while it support the primary purpose of the Bill, which they say is rightly focussed on commercial gambling companies, “no consideration was given when drafting to the serious impact that it will have on fundraising – probably because most politicians, like most people, do not view charity raffles and lotteries as gambling.”
Alarmingly the Charities Institute go on to claim that in partnership with the GAA & Irish Federation of Sports, it wrote to the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, to make a combined case for amending the Bill, but despite this, and despite meeting the Minister of State for Sport and his officials, as well as politicians on the Oireachtas Justice Committee, “our concerns about the Bill’s impact on fundraising have not been accepted.”
At the political level the Charities Institute are calling on politicians to speak during Report Stage next week and support a call for amendments to the legislation to protect charity fundraising by urging the Minister, at a minimum, to exclude registered charities/accredited sports clubs from the proposed advertising ban between 5.30 am and 9.00 pm.