Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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To state the obvious, neither I nor my Department rules on the amendments to a Bill that are to come before the committee. I will be happy to discuss the substance of what the Deputy has raised and proposed. The best approach may be if I put some points on the record and we can then discuss the matter in the context of the section.

Lobbying is an essential part of the democratic process. It enables and facilitates citizens and organisations to make their views known on public policy and public services to politicians and public servants. The aim of the 2015 Act is to provide information to the public about who is lobbying, on whose behalf the lobbying is being carried out, the issues involved in the lobbying, the intended result of the lobbying and who is being lobbied.

It is my view that sections 10, 11 and 12 of the 2015 Act already effectively ensure that appropriate and comprehensive information is provided by lobbyists and available to view by the public on the lobbying register to meet this critical aim. Requiring that documents giving to DPOs by lobbyists should be stored on the lobbying register, as proposed by the amendment, would mitigate provision of clear and easily accessible information on the register, which is one of the main aims of the Act. It would make the register too cumbersome to search and navigate and would not add anything to the already detailed information available on the register. It would undoubtedly add a significant administrative burden on the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, as the regulator. Each such document would have to be reviewed to ensure it is appropriate for publication, for example, that it does not contain any personal information.

Furthermore, the regulation of the lobbying legislative framework does not operate in a vacuum. It is a key element of a wider suite of legislative initiatives to support openness, transparency and accountability. It is open to anyone wishing to seek further information on any register entry to request such from the relevant public body, and this can be done through a freedom of information request. To put the matter in context, there are some 70,000 returns currently available to view on the register, which had been submitted by approximately 2,400 registered individuals or organisations, with 11,600 returns of lobbying activities submitted to the register in each of the three reporting periods in 2021.

It gives a sense of the scale of the activity that is captured and recorded. If every single paper and document relating to each act of lobbying must also be uploaded it would place a very onerous responsibility on SIPO. Not all of them could be published for a variety of different reasons. I therefore do not propose to accept the amendment, which I am aware has been ruled out of order.