TD ‘amazed’ when tout offered a ticket

THE chairwoman of the Dáil business committee has said she was ‘absolutely amazed’ when a tout recently offered her tickets for a musical that has been sold out since Christmas.

At a committee hearing on illegal ticket sales, Mary Butler said she had been waiting five months to go to the Bord Gáis theatre in Dublin for a production of West End musical Matilda. When she arrived a tout approached and offered her tickets.

The Waterford Fianna Fáil TD also said the recent Ed Sheeran concerts had linked the buyer’s name to tickets and this had caused some problems when the original ticket holder couldn’t attend and passed on the tickets. Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan said tour organisers should not be the ones trying to defeat the touts. ‘We should be legislating in this area,’ the deputy added.

Mr Quinlivan said there had been draft legislation under former minister Jimmy Deenihan as far back as 2005, but it had failed to progress through the Dáil.

His new measure, the Sale of Tickets (Sporting and Cultural Events) Bill 2017, will make it an offence to sell a ticket for more than 10% of the face value.

Belgium, Denmark, Croatia, France, Portugal, Poland and Norway have legislation which had been ‘reasonably effective’ in holding down prices in many cases, civil servants advised the committee, but problems had arisen where pop-up websites are outside the jurisdiction.