Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies opposite and I understand their points. I listened on Committee Stage to the points about the definition of a public sector body and I thought it too narrow in the initial draft Bill. I amended it on Committee Stage to include the 11 bodies listed by Deputy Fleming. That is a fairly comprehensive sweep of all bodies. The definition of what constitutes a Department of State, for example, is set out in primary law already. A public service body is defined in section 7, and for clarity a list of bodies coming within the scope of the definition, such as Departments, is included. The list contains the National Treasury Management Agency, the HSE and the Garda Síochána as they come within the scope as captured by a parent Department. The Revenue Commissioners is also captured by the definition of a Department of State. All the subsets of Departments, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and virtually every organisation listed by the Deputy, are captured in that definition. A public service body is one that has a pre-existing public service pension scheme, and that is the definition that captures all of those bodies. I intend the registrar's website to list all of them, but the Deputy is correct that we would be left with a telephone directory if we were to insert that in a piece of primary legislation. The list would not be permanent because bodies come and go, and that is why the process is done this way.

This goes back to the debate on whether we should be exhaustive in a list within primary legislation or if we have a broader scope in how we capture bodies. We would do that by using broad phrases such as "Departments of State", which are defined in broad terms, with all the agencies and sub-agencies within that remit. The Deputy is correct that the list of included bodies would be voluminous if I listed every State agency and body to be captured. Those to be excluded from the definition of public sector bodies are listed in the Schedule under the title "Bodies that are not Public Service Bodies". All of them have a commercial remit but are excluded. The reason for their exclusion is related to the point rehearsed very clearly by Deputy McDonald with regard to the debate on section 5(4)(m). The bodies listed in the Schedule benefit from the exemption set out in section 5(4)(m), which provides that certain - although not all - communications between a body and a Minister who holds shares in or a statutory function relating to that body would not need to be registered. The exemption is intended to cover governance matters made within the ordinary course of business for a commercial State body. Other types of lobbying not of that ilk will be captured. I hope that gives comfort to the Deputy opposite. It might not be clear from a "plain English" reading.

4 o’clock

That is my intention. The advice I have from the parliamentary draftsman is that intention is met in the way it is set out here.

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