Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hear exactly what the Deputies are saying. This gets to the crux of how we are going to reach our climate targets because, to do that, we need to work with industry, yet we know that when we work with industry, there are occasions when the public interest needs to be asserted over the interests of industry. My only fear with doing it in this ad hocway is that, should there be further changes to the Regulation of Lobbying Act, this would sit as an outlier to that. I am persuaded by the comments of the Minister of State that, if we believe in greater transparency and believe there needs to be a review, the place to do that is in the legislation which deals with how Ministers are lobbied, rather than inserting ad hocamendments to different legislation. For example, this committee recently dealt with the Land Development Agency Bill and I know we will deal with other Bills. It is my view that the committee would be better seeking to have amendments to the lobbying legislation rather than to do it in an ad hocway in this Bill.