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

Okay. I thank Ms Cassidy. One of the banes of my existence is probably in relation to the lobbying register itself. One thing I felt was absent from this Bill but that could be incorporated was some better connection to the lobbying register. I have often found the information one gets in the lobbying register to be too limited to be really meaningful. We often know the names of those who were there in terms of officials in lobbying organisations, the dates they had the meeting and a brief line on what it was on. It can be harder to ascertain the impact of this lobbying activity, however, which is obviously core and crucial. Where is the legislative impact? At what stage was a Bill amended? Do certain lobbyists have more of an impact than others and if so, who are they? Does Ms Cassidy have any thoughts on how the lobbying register could be improved to support the overall regulation of lobbying here? I suppose some of that could be used as an amendment to this Bill in a way just to get the transparency out there more.