Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Professor Murphy made a very good point on the need to be able to react, which is what our Bill is doing. It is reacting and trying to strengthen the legislation. It is essential to have public confidence in political and public life. As Mr. Devitt said, this along with other Bills will seek to increase transparency and accountability.

I am interested in the witnesses' views in regard to the definition of lobbying itself. Obviously, there are four different ways that can be defined, namely, where people are communicating either directly or indirectly with a designated public official, DPO, where communication is about a relevant matter, where communication is not specifically exempted and where the person is considered to be in “one of the following” groups. The idea is that if I was lobbying a Minister on a relevant matter for some financial award but it was for somebody else, that would be considered lobbying. However, if I was doing it in regard to myself, that would not be considered lobbying. Do the witnesses think that definition needs to be strengthened or looked at? I would be interested in their thoughts on that.