A district court judge yesterday granted a certificate of suitability of premises to a bookmaker for what will be Killarney's eighth bookmaker's office, despite objections from the Garda that Killarney already had enough betting offices for a town of its size.
Mr Thomas Byrne, Kilglynn, Kilcock, Co Meath, was appealing against the refusal of the Garda superintendent for a certificate to open a bookmaker's office at 1 and 2 Main Street, Killarney, Co Kerry, under the Betting Act 1931.
Judge Humphrey Kelleher summarised the Garda position as that another betting shop "would make it too much", while Mr Byrne's position was there was always room for one more. Barrister for Mr Byrne, Mr Henry Downing, agreed with this analysis.
Supt Michael Maher said there were already seven bookmakers in Killarney, which had an urban population of 9,470 and a rural population of more than 28,000, according to the 2002 census.The town easily doubled its population during the summer.
Other towns such as Ennis with a population of 30,000 had six betting offices and Tralee with double Killarney's population, had seven. It had been a number of years since a bookmaker's licence was granted in Tralee, Supt Maher said.
Mr Byrne, a licensed bookmaker with 20 other premises, carried out a survey on Killarney and found it to be suitable compared with other towns, he told the court. A lot of towns had a worse population (that is smaller populations with more betting shops), Mr Byrne felt.
Judge Kelleher granted the certificate. A third party objector was not in court.