The culling of casinos

'Do you need €1.35 million? Play Now. Lotto. It could be you." The text of this advertisement for the National Lottery, in the window of some retailers at present, proves that the Government not only approves of gambling but actively encourages it.

But Michael McDowell is against casinos.

He says most of the new ones that have opened in recent years are illegal – and almost certainly they are – and that he is going to close them. He is examining ways at present of doing so that will stand up to any legal challenge (although if he is so certain they are illegal, that would suggest that closure should be an easy and automatic option).

But why does he want to close them if a public demand exists, as the opening of about 25 such clubs nationwide implies?

It may be that McDowell fears social collapse if gambling is facilitated in casinos, that people cannot be trusted to act responsibly with their own money. He could rightly point to the social ills that often result from excessive gambling, particularly the impact on the families of those who gamble and lose large amounts.

It may be that he is worried about the potential for money-laundering, that criminal gangs or terrorists could use venues such as private member casinos as an opportunity to gamble cash. Even if they win only a fraction of the money back it has been "washed". This, after all, is what some criminals and drug-traffickers are said to have done at conventional bookmaker premises over the years, before the laws were tightened.

Or it may be that he simply wishes to punish those who have attempted to drive a coach and four through the existing legislation that only allows private members gaming clubs to exist where they do not operate on a for-profit basis. Clearly, the investors in some of the major clubs that have opened have invested enormous money, with the intention of making large profits.

But if McDowell is so worried about the social ills of gambling, what does he think of the activities at conventional bookmakers, or over the phone with licenced bookmakers, or on the internet, where equally large sums of money can be lost as in casinos?

If he is worried about the potential for money-laundering, would he not be better off putting casinos on a footing where they have to adhere to regulation, where he can enforce standards, demand regular audits and levy taxation?

And if there are wealthy individuals who are exploiting the laws at present why don't the Gardaí investigate and the Director of Public Prosecutions take action – or the Gardaí simply close premises – instead of McDowell issuing warnings through the media and in the Dáil?

But why should he do all of that when the State presently levies massive taxes from gambling – and often puts the proceeds to no better use than funding the horse-racing and greyhound racing industries – and operates the National Lottery?

Is the Lotto any less moral or ethical than other forms of gambling? Its adverts play to "need" although the odds are massively stacked against any individual who enters. It presents itself as, and pretends to be, a game, even when it is gambling to all intents and purposes. Maybe it is a more socially acceptable form of gambling than the private sector operates, in that the profits go to good causes instead of the pockets of bookies. People spent over €614 million on lottery tickets and of that just over €200 million was paid out to "good causes" (although what these constitute, and whether they should be funded directly from an exchequer awash with cash rather than a quasi-levy based on gambling, is another issue).

There are no limits on what a person can spend on Lotto tickets in a week. The Government relies on good sense overcoming greed and foolishness and does not seem to believe that it could be responsible for creating unnecessary and harmful addiction to gambling. But it is not prepared to make that assumption about the people who want to enter casinos and spent their own money as they see fit.

How does that square with the PDs' supposed ethos of allowing for, and facilitating, personal choice in how people live their lives? Does such freedom extend only to the way in which people earn money, but not how they spend it? McDowell may regard gambling as a vice, but if he is to be consistent, why should he single out casinos against all other locations for gambling? Should he not clamp down on all forms of gambling (or would that be possible or even desirable)?

Or would he not be better off dealing with other issues of more pressing concern?

Driving test backlog

Drivers on provisional licences pay more for motor insurance than those with full licences. This is logical enough. What's not fair is the delay in allowing tens of thousands of motorists annually the chance of qualifying for a full licence, by means of passing a test, thereby costing individuals hundreds and possibly thousands of euro.

This is the Government's fault and any attempts to blame the trade union Impact for blocking reform of the system are somewhat misplaced.

It is the Government that has allowed a backlog in testing to develop through poor management of public service resources – so that in some parts of the country people must wait over a year from the time of application before getting a test. If these people fail, they have to go back on the list again. It is the Government that has failed to clear the backlog, despite many promises and attempted initiatives such as the short-term contracting of testing work to the private sector so as to clear the backlog of about 40,000 tests.

Impact objected to this solution to a short-term impasse, muttering the dreaded word "privatisation", as if the entire system was to be contracted and as if the jobs of existing full-time State employed workers were under threat, neither of which was true.

Yet Impact was fully within its rights to fight Martin Cullen's plan to sub-contract the work (once it became clear that the idea of using Department of Agriculture employees to do the job was a non-runner, because the individuals who wanted the work simply didn't have the required qualifications).

Impact won at an arbitration hearing because of a clause in Sustaining Progress that does not allow for "core work" done by public servants to be done by anyone else.

The Government agreed to this clause – section 21, sub-section 9 of Sustaining Progress and we'll spare you the legal jargon in which it is written – so it got what was coming to it when Impact objected to the driving test initiative. That clause effectively legitimised restrictive work practices and removed the Government's own ability to respond to public need, giving preference to the demands of State employees over other citizens. Plus a change.

It also fails to deal with the fact that while the State has employed more driving testers each year since 2000, the numbers completing tests each year is falling. So much for productivity (and benchmarking pay rises). So much for Cullen's claims that reducing the numbers of unqualified drivers on our roads is essential to road safety.

But the unions shouldn't get too self-satisfied about this outcome. While academics like John Geary at University College Dublin have produced authoritative studies claiming that more people would like to become members of trade unions, the reality is that membership as a proportion of the overall workforce is falling, particularly among younger people.

The young Irish workforce is far more flexible in its attitude towards jobs and work. It is prepared to move jobs instead of demanding a job for life, and is prepared to change tasks frequently. It wants fair compensation and standards of employment but doesn't necessarily believe that trade unions will secure those. Instead, it sees trade unions who seem more interested in maintaining the status quo, even when change is clearly needed.

Many younger potential trade union members are those who hold provisional drivers licences at present. They have seen what has happened, how their tests are being delayed and how it is costing them money, and they will blame the unions, not the Government, for this. Why then should they join such organisations?

Media coverage of the national pay talks has gone just as this column predicted. There has been weeks of mutterings and warnings about grave difficulties in the process, about the distance between the Government, business and trade unions, the problems over major issues of importance that could derail a deal. Then last Monday's Irish Times started its coverage under the headline "New sense of optimism emerges at partnership discussions". Of course.

That's not to say a deal is done, or that there won't be many more "crises" between now and when one is hammered out. But this is why taking much notice of the leaks and statements between now and then is pretty pointless. A deal will be done involving significant pay rises for public sector workers and which will give the impression that the trade unions have effected significant new protections for those in employment. Whether such protections will be necessary or desirable remains to be seen.

Also expect the Government to promise significant tax breaks that will benefit all workers, irrespective of whether they are in public or private sector employment. It is the pay deal running into an election after all. Inflation is ticking upwards sharply – at 3.3 per cent for the year ending in February – so the need to make consumers feel they have increased spending power can be dealt with obviously through tax cuts.

And rightly or wrongly, many people feel their income is excessively taxed at present. New figures released last week show that almost one in three workers will pay tax at the highest rate – 42 per cent this year, whereas a decade ago only 28 per cent of workers paid at the highest rate (which was higher then).

This means that there are 658,000 potentially unhappy voters out there. Even if many clearly deserve to be paying at the top rate, many others clearly don't. These people care about themselves, not that 720,000 people have been removed from the tax net in recognition of the fact that the lowly paid shouldn't be burdened with income tax.

This is just another reason why a cut in the top rate of tax is likely to be introduced in Brian Cowen's 2006 budget.

Bertie Ahern has conceded that there can be no special treatment for Irish immigrants illegally living in the United States (and who make up anywhere between 50,000 and 100,000 of the 11 or 12 million "foreign nationals" who do not have proper documents entitling them to be in that country).

The campaign for the Irish is dependent so on the McCain-Kennedy bill establishing the status of all of those immigrants, regularising their work positions and entitlement to be in the US, and holding out the potential of future citizenship. Fortunately, President George Bush, even more unpopular in Ireland it seems than in the US where his opinion poll ratings have slumped, seems disposed towards dealing with the problem in a way that may be favourable to the Irish.

While Ahern's rhetoric about the contribution of the Irish to modern-day America may be over-blown and self-serving, he is right to try it on behalf of these Irish citizens. Many have set down roots in the US, albeit illegally, and want to stay there. They could return home of course, and economically their return would be sustainable, but for many their lives are now set in the US.

Our Government's request on their behalf amounts to an appeal for generosity on the part of the Bush administration. It is not necessarily replicated here. Ahern's Government could offer as proof of its own bona fides its allowing the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the country. Ireland, after all, was one of only three EU countries that allowed for the free influx of citizens of the 10 new member states of the EU.

But there has been little such generosity of spirit to those who arrived from outside the EU, particularly from Africa. A culture has developed, with no little encouragement from this Government, that has frowned on the arrival of these people, creating ghettos and delaying the processing of applications to stay.

The Government's own constitutional referendum on the rights of citizenship, restricting it only to those born of Irish citizens, was overwhelmingly carried after a non-too-subtle campaign based on a scare of "passport shopping".

Refugees, coming from countries that have low standards of human rights, are rarely called that these days: they are referred to as "asylum seekers" or "economic migrants", which in the voices of some are derogatory terms, easily spat out. But what else are the Irish in America other than "economic migrants", doing what we so quickly deny to foreign nationals, or so often rudely described as "non-nationals" in our own country?

Matt Cooper presents The Last Word on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 5pm – 7pm