Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests from the Standards in Public Office Commission. I will pick up on the last point. Under the definition of lobbying in the legislation as currently drafted, an individual who is not operating on behalf of a third party and does not have more than ten employees can only lobby if it is deemed to be about land rezoning. We have had a huge controversy about former Minister, Katherine Zappone and whether she lobbied for a position paid for from the public purse. I will not go into detail on that but, as earlier commentators mentioned, we sometimes get better legislation, unfortunately, after an event has taken place. The legislation allows me, potentially, as a former TD, to phone a Minister and say I am desperate and would love to be appointed to a position that would tide me over with €30,000 or €40,000 per year. Under current legislation, I have not contravened any lobbying Act and have no requirement to register that in the lobbying register. I cannot be deemed to be lobbying a Minister even though I would be getting a public contract worth €40,000. Indeed, it could be millions of euro, hypothetically, and would not fall within the scope of the Act. Is that not something we need to deal with? The difficulty and challenge that has been laid out is how to define that to exclude somebody looking for assistance to get a grant for their roof because it is leaking and they need State support.