Dáil debates

Thursday, 2 February 2017

12:25 pm

Photo of Frances FitzgeraldFrances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy was at the Cabinet table when the legislation was passed by the Government. It was very important legislation. If what the Deputy is describing as a shadow system exists, it clearly needs to come out of the shadows. I have made that very clear. The legislation exists and lobbyists have a responsibility to register. If the Deputy has information about the shadow lobbying she believes is taking place, she should make it known to the Minister for Finance. It needs to be examined. We introduced the legislation because there was lobbying of various sorts occurring behind the scenes. A decision was taken by the last Government to have more transparency in this regard. If there is further work to be done on it, that can happen.

I agree with the Deputy's point on social transfers and their impact. The evidence from yesterday's CSO report and Gini analysis is very clear that social transfers continue to perform very strongly in reducing the at-risk-of-poverty rate. There was a reduction from 34.9% before social transfers to 16.9% after social transfers. That is a very significant reduction in poverty as a result of the decisions taken by the current Government and its predecessor.

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