Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

If one receives a gift in a personal or any other capacity, one would have to check with the Standards in Public Office Commission. Otherwise, one could not accept anything. The code will have to be designed in the same way.

The Deputy is correct about retrospective legislation, but I should say to Members following my recent experiences that even though the code of conduct relating to ethics dates to 1995 and 2000, the Standards in Public Office Commission dates to 2001 and the legislation relating to public funding dates to 1997. The code was updated twice since then. Whenever one gets into any difficulty it does not matter what is retrospective but none of these things applied when I was there; everyone just ignores that point. Retrospective legislation applies to every other case but when it concerns an individual, unfortunately, it does not.

I accept Deputy Kenny's point that it will have to be clear that whatever the circumstances in which one receives something, one must check with the Standards in Public Office Commission.

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