Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform

Registration of Lobbying Bill 2014: Committee Stage

4:25 pm

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----to register the fact the he or she had been so lobbied and the public official shall provide the necessary information to SIPO for inclusion in the register and for the provision and maintenance of a category of information shall be kept by the commission as it considers appropriate because they do not know what other body to lodge that.

Some of the Minister's ministerial colleagues, such as the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance, were in Davos, and all of a sudden some of largest vulture capitalist companies in the world who wanted to get easy pickings in Ireland at the bottom of the property market came here. Bits and pieces of NAMA were sold off for €200 or €300 million rather than having decent offers of €5 billion or €6 billion. That level of lobbying has the potential to have a more significant impact for the future of Irish finances than everything which could be captured under this Bill. There is no mechanism in the Bill to deal with that.

The Minister for Finance, another Minister or other people we have mentioned could easily be lobbied. Had a meeting like that in Davos happened in a Minister's office or elsewhere in the State, it would be captured under lobbying legislation. It could happen at a European Council meeting. Who knows who a Minister could meet in the course of his or her meetings. I recall the Minister, Deputy Noonan, returned after the Davos trip and said we would consider larger tranches of the NTMA. It may or may not have been unconnected. Macro lobbying is a very serious issue and people are not just concerned about micro lobbying. The Minister can understand from where I am coming.

Amendment No. 50 states: "Where a designated public official is lobbied by an organisation from outside of the State, the onus shall be on that public official to register the fact that he or she had been so lobbied and that public official shall provide the necessary information to the Standards in Public Office Commission" or some other body. I do not think in this day and age, given the level of communications, it is possible that an organisation from outside the State cannot be covered. Organisations based in the State will have to register. Perhaps it does cover organisations that are lobbying designated public officials such as Minister, but do so from outside the State. Are such organisations required to register under the Bill? I hope they are, and if not they should be.

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