The Mayo Fine Gael deputy Michael Ring, who was junior minister for sport in the last government, has responded to the stories about widespread betting on underage GAA fixtures and has called for the new Dáil to consider if there is a need for legislation.

There was a story last week about a senior inter-county player (not named) admitting that he had become addicted to gambling and had even bet against his own team (on a day when he was not called off the bench, not that that makes any difference).

The former Dubs star Dessie Farrell of the Gaelic Players Association has been drawing attention for quite some time to the prevalence of gambling and betting addiction among top-flight hurlers and Gaelic footballers.

There is something serious going on here and there is an economics angle to it. Once upon a time, sports betting meant betting on horseracing and, to a lesser extent, on greyhounds. Both the horse and greyhound industries have been aware for generations that race-fixing is a problem and both have what they call ‘‘integrity’’ systems in place. Dodgy operators are policed and funny results investigated. This is costly but bookmakers, through taxes, levies and event sponsorship, contribute towards the cost. In recent times, the betting companies have extended their coverage to just about every other sport but there is no comparable (or any) integrity system in place.

The Paddy Power website lists netball, water polo and beach volleyball on the long list of events where they make ‘‘markets’’ and the Football Association of Ireland has had to investigate irregular betting patterns from the Far East on League of Ireland games between teams whose support base does not include Asia.

What are the sports administrators in these presumably innocent pastures supposed to do when the bookies come grazing? Are the beach volleyball people supposed to replicate the policing system for horseracing which has evolved over centuries, and is paid for, at least in part, by the gambling industry? When your amateur sport becomes a betting vehicle for third parties, creating a myriad of problems but zero benefit, are you supposed to incur the costs of creating ‘‘integrity’’ for somebody else’s business? Horses do not fix horse races, but volleyball players, and hurlers, may well be tempted.

The cricket team of Pakistan, one of the top cricket countries in the world, has lost a string of its best young players in recent years because they were tempted by bookies or their clients to fix match outcomes. They succumbed to temptation, took the money, fixed the games, got found out and banned. This has been a recurring pattern down the years (centuries, actually) in horseracing. But everyone understands that this is a sport that people bet on. The extension of sports betting to every sport under the sun, including amateur sports which have never been asked to offer their fixtures as a betting medium, is an invidious development. The sports concerned should be able to insist on copyright in their fixture lists, and be able to deny their use to betting firms.

There is a legal precedent. Back in the 1950s, the English Football League objected to the Littlewoods company, operators of one of the football pools (innocent days, an innocuous form of gambling by today’s standards) using their fixture lists to organise their gambling system.

The court found that the Football League possessed copyright in its fixture lists and they settled for a fee from Littlewoods.

The GAA could, if the Irish courts took the same view, decline the fee and restrict the use of its fixture lists to the mainstream newspapers and broadcasters. Deputy Ring, and the GAA, should check out the case – it was Football League v Littlewoods, settled in 1957.

The principle established on that occasion is a sound one. Nobody should be free to run a gambling business around your netball (or volleyball, or hurling) competition, imposing costs and heartache, without your permission.

The bookmaking industry, partly because of changes in technology, is enjoying a kind of unregulated boom. Most industries do not need government regulation, but the gambling industry is different. The industry’s ‘‘product’’ is harmless and a bit of diversion for most people but addictive and damaging for many. There are deep issues for Irish society arising from the social damage done, a silent epidemic, by excessive availability of access to betting and gambling. Sports never before a vehicle for the gambling industry are also victims.

Dessie Farrell, and Michael Ring, have been raising an important issue of public policy and the GAA, one of the remaining national organisations that retains public trust, should check out the law and insist on copyright in its fixture lists.