Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am disappointed. The question of a register of declared interests should not just be addressed in this legislation but also become the subject of a wider debate, including on our roles. Deputies declare assets but not debts. In the past two years the media have been able to uncover that a number of Ministers have debts with financial institutions. Questions were raised about the appropriateness of lobbying institutions using headed State paper and so on. One Minister reportedly had soft loans from an institution, an individual in which, Mr. Michael Fingleton, had provided a very soft loan for another Member of the House who had been the subject of the Moriarty tribunal. The problem is that our register of interests only deals with assets, not liabilities. One is probably more in the pocket of the banks in the decisions one makes if one owes them €400,000 or €500,000, depends on them to restructure one's business portfolio or debts or is in fear of losing one's home or farm.

There needs to be greater transparency in the registering of declared interests, albeit within limits that could be addressed through regulations. All of the agency's members are appointed by the Government. A register of their declared interests should be publicly available. Every Deputy can make a mistake, but it is because of public scrutiny that complaints have been made to the SIPO, for example, about Deputies not declaring interests about which the public knows because people live next to them, know that they have rental properties that were not included in the register or know that one of their properties may have been the subject of a lengthy tribunal of inquiry process because it was not declared. These are important issues, but if there is no register, there is nothing for the public to go by. This leads to the greater risk of members of the agency not declaring interests and it never being uncovered.

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