Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Lobbying has an important role to play in helping to ensure all perspectives, assessments and opinions are presented and available to inform decision-making in key areas of public policy and legislative proposals. I strongly welcome the Government's decision to introduce the Bill to the House, as it marks an important step in the process of helping to rebuild public trust in the political system by throwing light on its interaction with those who seek to shape and influence policy across all sections of society. The intention of the legislation is to strengthen the openness and scope for public scrutiny of the interactions and engagements between all sections of society with the political and administrative systems.

The Bill will enable the wider public to reach informed evidence-based judgments on the extent to which interest groups are accessing key decision makers across the political and public service systems and increase public understanding of lobbying activity in Ireland. The legislation also clarifies what is a "designated public official". It includes Members of the Oireachtas, Ministers and Ministers of State and their special advisers, councillors and MEPs. I understand it is envisaged that, on commencement, the Bill will apply to communications with officials at Secretary General and assistant secretary level in the Civil Service and equivalent levels in local authorities. The Minister may prescribe further public servants as designated public officials and will have regard to the public interest in arriving at a decision.

The legislation will provide for a register of lobbying to make information available to the public on the identity of those communicating on specific policy, legislative matters or prospective decisions with designated public officials. The Bill allows for the development of a code of conduct by the Standards in Public Office Commission and also provides for restrictions and conditions on the taking up of certain employments by certain designated officials for a specified time where a possible conflict of interest arises. An example of this in the past decade was county managers retiring and immediately taking up positions working for property developers. That issue needed to be addressed.

The legislation also states a lobbyist must be registered before carrying on lobbying activities unless it is his or her first time to lobby. In that case the registration and return must be completed before the next return date.

A regular review of the effectiveness of the legislation is provided for. The first review should be held no later than one year following commencement of the legislation, with each subsequent review to be held every five years thereafter. Reports on the findings and recommendations of these reviews will be presented to both Houses of the Oireachtas within six months of the end of the relevant period.

The legislation establishes that lobbying activity is carried out by persons in the course of their business in return for payment by a client, an employer or his or her employee on behalf of the employer, or any person on matters about the development or zoning of land. It defines the communications that constitute lobbying and those that are excluded. It also determines that normal citizen interaction with public representatives relating to a person's private affairs or communications by employers with ten employees or fewer relating on the affairs of that employer will not be included in the register unless the communication is in respect of land zoning or development.

Planning matters relating to an individual's principal private residence will be exempt and the legislation also sets out other exemptions to the regulatory requirements in the Bill. Such exemptions include those relating to international relations, factual information sought by a public body or other information sought by and published by a public body, matters posing a threat to the safety of persons or the security of the State, communications between public officials acting in an official capacity and communications between members of a group established by a Minister or a public body subject to a requirement to comply with a transparency code.

When lobbying is mentioned, I always think of the Mahon tribunal and the lobbyist Mr. Frank Dunlop who played a starring role in both the Mahon and Flood tribunals. He sent me lobbying material in the 1990s in respect of the Penine Holdings development in Baldoyle, which figured in the Mahon tribunal, and a development near Clare Hall on the Malahide Road in the Dublin City Council area. I recall that on one occasion the maps he sent were completely wrong.

I am happy that this legislation is before the House. Lobbying plays an important role in politics, but it also has the potential to be badly and seriously abused. I witnessed this in my constituency when the lobbying process was used to facilitate corruption, as evidenced by the Mahon tribunal. The Bill will help to shine a light on the lobbying industry and I strongly commend it to the House.

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