Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----but, because it has been grouped with amendments that were initially in my name earlier on in the legislative process, it has come in under the group. I must respond in the dark, not knowing precisely what the Minister will say. However, on the face of it, this looks like a good amendment. It captures a lot of what we spoke about at Committee Stage. Essentially, we spoke about voluntary organisations. I mentioned some of the large organisations in the country that have volunteers working on a daily or weekly basis as local officers. In particular, we mentioned the farming organisations. There would be probably be some of the trade union organisations as well, and some of the charitable organisations. Many of these organisations' members, local officers and local chairman who are busy fundraising - rattling the money boxes on Saturdays and Sundays - want to get their organisations and the work they do recognised, and there is no conceivable way any organisation could be expected to capture all of that particular work. We had asked that volunteers not be included in the Bill, and this is what I note the Minister proposes to do here. I think everybody will recognise that this amendment is a good day's work. It is probably one of the most important amendments we will have here today, because there was a concern in this regard. The Bill as drafted was well-intentioned, but it could have been a little overarching, and maybe over-prescriptive, or there was the possibility for somebody to be over-prescriptive in its implementation. I note that the Department conducted pilot surveys with different organisations to get feedback. That, obviously, has fed into this as well. We heard from other organisations. I do not have the correspondence with me here, but it dealt with an organisation in the retail sector. I forget the particular organisation, but all members of the committee, including the Minister, will have received that correspondence about how a shopkeeper might be part of a large retail group - I do not think it was RGDATA - when a Minister goes into a local shop to get his newspaper and the shopkeeper says something to him. The shopkeeper is only a member of an organisation and should not have to be captured in lobbying a Minister. However, if the national organisation chooses to formally lobby the Minister, by all means, that should be captured. People understand and accept the principle behind that. It will make life simpler.

People are worried about over-regulation. It will be included in the legislation that the body makes a relevant communication where lobbying is done by an employee of the body centrally - that is a good idea, as they are the ones who work on a day-to-day basis - or where it is done by a person who holds, in the body, any office that is a remunerated position - one might not be a full-time employee but there might be a formal mechanism for one to be remunerated in the post that one holds, in a region or nationally, in the organisation - whose functions relate to the body on whose behalf one is lobbying. If one is remunerated - if one is a person who holds a position in those bodies - one should be included. However, other ordinary persons who are merely volunteers in the organisation should not be so captured by the Bill. That is the essence of amendment No. 18. I welcome that and I think everybody will welcome it as well.

My amendment, No. 20, deals with the issue of the size of an organisation. It refers to "communications by or on behalf of an employer, other than a registered person, with not more than 10 employees and less than €10 million of an annual turnover". On Committee Stage, I had a figure of €5 million. The Minister stated that the audit figure for some companies was at a higher threshold than that, and I came back with a revised threshold to bring it to over €10 million. I have no difficulty with that. The essence of what I am getting at in amendment No. 20 is that one could have a large organisation - almost a shelf company, with few or no employees - with a much higher level of turnover, at €10 million or €20 million. I cited several examples. Even a company that gets a contract to build a major school, which could be over worth €10 million, might be merely a holding company within a group, and there might be no employees, but the ultimate turnover in that group could be well over €10 million. That is why limiting the provision to include the number of employees only could result in the omission of many holding companies or companies within a corporate structure that do not have employees but have significant turnover and influence, and maybe have only two part-time directors. That is why I have asked that employers whose organisations have a turnover of over €10 million be included.

Amendment No. 21 is in the name of the Minister.

Amendment No. 58 deals with the central point on which I spoke earlier. It states:

In page 14, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following:"(9) This section shall not apply to unpaid volunteers of an organisation that is otherwise a registered person for the purposes of this Act.".

That is the essence of what the Minister has taken on board. He is saying that an employee in a remunerated position in the organisation that is lobbying must be included under the Bill, but the spirit of what I asked for here is that the work of unpaid volunteers of such an organisation should not have to be included under the Bill, for the reasons I outlined. It would be far too cumbersome. The Minister has accepted the principle of that in his amendment.

That is a brief explanation of these 19 important amendments, 16 of which are in my name. I would like to see all of these included in the Bill, now rather than in 12 months' time.

It is our job to recognise that this is a good Bill. By European standards, even though it is only our first stab at it in Ireland, it would be considered a good Bill. I am here trying to make it that little bit better.

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