Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 9 March 2017
Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach
Estimates for Public Services 2017
Vote 11 - Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (Revised)
Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances (Revised)
Vote 14 - State Laboratory (Revised)
Vote 15 - Secret Service (Revised)
Vote 17 - Public Appointments Service (Revised)
Vote 18 - National Shared Services Office (Revised)
Vote 19 - Office of the Ombudsman (Revised)
Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement (Revised)
11:10 am
Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
I am. I have the report on the review of the Act on my desk and I am considering it at the moment. I aim to publish it soon. This legislation has had a big effect. I have had lots of contact in respect of the operation of the Act. The Deputy will see when the report is published that we have had a number of submissions on how it is working and all of them were made in the spirit of making it work more effectively. Some people feel it could be less onerous. I would like to outline the scale of participation to date in advance of publishing the report. A total of 11,0000 returns have been submitted to the lobbying register and the public can view them on www.lobbying.ie. A total of 1,600 persons and organisations are on the register. Whatever discussion we have about changes that may be made, those figures point to the success of the intervention. It is to the great personal credit of my predecessor, Deputy Howlin, that he put this legislation in place. I will publish the review imminently.
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