Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Murphy and Mr. Devitt. The Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2020, which is sponsored by Deputy Mairéad Farrell and I was introduced by Sinn Féin to strengthen the lobbying regulations and close that revolving door between vested interests and Government. The witnesses sum up what is important in transparency where lobbying takes place. The interests of workers and families should be at the heart of Government and for too long we have had insiders and those with power and money able to influence Government decisions without public knowledge of same. That can have a corrosive effect on ordinary workers and families as they come out as the losers. This is an attempt to change that, to shed some light on areas where it has not been shed in the past and to strengthen the legislation that is in place.

I want to begin my asking Mr. Devitt a number of questions.

The legislation before us sponsored by Deputy Mairéad Farrell and I basically comes from standards in public office in the main. There are some additions to that but these are all recommendations, some of which go back as far as 2016 or 2019 to which the Department has responded on a number of occasions. However, it has ignored and refused to implement these recommendations. Is there anything in this Bill that is too onerous or too difficult to implement on DPOs or SIPO, or on those being lobbied?