Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

These questions cover a wide area. My question deals with the implementation of the civic life section of the programme for Government. One of the subsections deals with ethics and investigations. This year the Government published the Ethics in Public Office (Amendment) Bill 2007, the purpose of which was to provide that where a Member of the Dáil or Seanad proposed to accept a significant gift from a friend for personal purposes, he or she would be obliged to check with the Standards in Public Office Commission whether it was all right to accept it. That Bill was passed in the Seanad but seems to have disappeared since. It has not been introduced in the Dáil and I cannot find any reference to it in the programme for Government. Is it still the Government's intention to proceed with this legislation? This is probably a question more appropriate to the Order of Business, but the Taoiseach might give some indication of when the Bill will be brought before the House.

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