Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together.

If a Minister were to receive a gift worth more than €650 from a State agency, it would be deemed to be a gift given by virtue of office and would have to be surrendered to the State. It would also have to be declared in the Minister's annual statement of registerable interests.

As regards hospitality, I assume that the Deputies are not referring to a situation where Ministers travel abroad in the course of, and for the performance of, their duties and their travel expenses and accommodation are paid for by the State agency on behalf of which they are travelling. For obvious reasons, restrictions in the code of conduct for officeholders published by the Standards in Public Office Commission, which I will refer to in a moment, do not apply to any offer or supply of property or a service made "in the course of and for the purpose of performance of duties of an officeholder, for example, hotel facilities or attendance at EU Council meetings, including a representational role by a spouse where this is in accordance with established practice".

As regards hospitality otherwise, the code of conduct for officeholders sets out, among other things, a framework for the acceptance of hospitality by officeholders. Briefly, the code provides that officeholders should not accept offers of hospitality where to do so would, or might appear to, place them under an obligation. The code also provides that officeholders should not accept offers to meet the costs of travel facilities and-or commercial accommodation in connection with official activities where such offers are made by private citizens or private enterprises, but that discretion may be used where an officeholder is the official guest of another Government or official body, or of a not-for-profit representative organisation or the like.

The Department of Finance's code of practice for the governance of State bodies provides a corporate governance best practice framework under which State agencies are required to conduct their business. Among other things, it provides that State agencies should avoid providing hospitality which might affect or appear to affect the ability of the donor or the recipient to make independent judgments on business transactions.

The code of practice recognises that it is not feasible to provide specifically for all situations which will arise. It reminds directors and employees of State agencies, therefore, that it is primarily their responsibility to ensure that all their activities, whether covered specifically or otherwise by the code, are governed by the ethical and other considerations implicit in it.

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