Touts to be outed

Paying twice the price to see your favourite band might soon be a thing of the past. Fine Gael T.D. Jimmy Deenihan is to revive his private member ‘New Prohibition of Ticket Touts Bill’, which calls for the confiscation of tickets; fines of up to €3,000 and/or six months in jail; and a ban on magazines like Buy & Sell advertising tickets for above face value.
The legislation is likely to get the support of Brian Cowen who, asked by Hot Press whether touting should be looked at, says: “Absolutely. I mean, I never met a ticket tout who’d give you a discount! But joking aside, the whole question about how some certain people get access to a lot of tickets for major events and use it as a means of gazumping people is wrong. There must be a system to stamp out all of that stuff.”