Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The net point with regard to the former Minister of State, Mr. Parlon, is that had he been a senior civil servant in the OPW who transferred to a job directly connected with his previous job of overseeing considerable volumes of capital State expenditure in construction projects, under the code of ethics he would have been required to contact either the Secretary General of the Department or the appointments board for advice on what is a conflict of interest.

Did the former Minister of State advise the Government, the Secretary General to the Government or the Secretary General of his former Department that he was undertaking a position which could give rise to the perception of a conflict of interest if not an actual one? The rule for senior civil servants, which we debated at length here, is that unless they are advised it is all right they must wait 12 months. People on all sides of the House agreed, in the context of generous departure and retirement arrangements for senior civil servants and Members of the House, that not allowing a buffer period of time to elapse is wrong and sends out the wrong message. One day one looks after the job in Government of spending hundreds of millions on construction contracts and the next day one changes hats and does the same job for the Construction Industry Federation. If we have a good rule for senior civil servants, why do we not have it for people such as the former Minister of State?

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