Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Five years ago the final report of the Mahon tribunal into certain planning matters and payments stated:

Corruption in Irish political life was both endemic and systemic. It affected every level of Government, from some holders of top ministerial office to some local councillors and its existence was widely known and widely tolerated. Although that corruption was occasionally the subject of investigation or adverse comment, those involved operated with a justified sense of impunity and invincibility. There was little appetite on the part of the State’s political or investigative authorities to combat this effectively or to sanction those involved.

While Mr Justice Mahon was speaking in the past tense, one has to ask whether much has changed in the meantime. Fundamentally, not a lot has changed in the culture around the nexus between politics and business. Too often, a blind eye is turned to inappropriate behaviour and corruption. One must also ask why, more than five years after the final Mahon report, we are only just starting to look at implementing its recommendations. Clearly, the answer is that Fine Gael does not have the political will to tackle corruption in a meaningful way.

While the measures in the Bill are a step in the right direction, its content is hardly revolutionary. The delays in its publication have resulted in a situation in which its recommendations are really just a product of their time, which was five years ago. While this is the Bill we needed five years ago, the debate has moved far beyond this sort of piecemeal approach to tackling corruption in the intervening years. We really need to get with the times. While the heads of the Bill were still at the drafting stage, many other jurisdictions were adopting a far more proactive approach to corruption. They established dedicated anti-corruption agencies, which Transparency International has described as key to the fight against corruption. There is clear evidence that they represent international best practice, which fact was recognised in the United Nations Convention against Corruption, of which Ireland is a signatory. Nevertheless, there has been no move by Government to set up a dedicated agency to tackle corruption by way of investigations and prosecutions. This is the kind of approach we need.

We need a root and branch reform of our anti-corruption regime. What we need something similar to the approach undertaken in Victoria, Australia. In 2012, the state of Victoria amalgamated several existing agencies to establish a dedicated anti-corruption body. The Victoria agency is a proactive body which covers 3,600 public sector bodies, 79 local councils, members of parliament, the judiciary and the police force. It is a prime example of the interagency approach we should and easily could adopt. Crucially, the Victoria model includes the extensive powers many of our agencies lack. For example, it can conduct search and seizure operations, compel interviews and exercise powers of prosecution in certain circumstances.

The Bill before the house represents a small step forward. As a country, however, we are far beyond the point where small steps are enough. Earlier in the year, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, seemed to recognise this when he made the need for an anti-corruption agency an essential part of his campaign for the leadership of Fine Gael. While the agency he envisaged was far more limited than the one my party, the Social Democrats, has proposed, it was at least a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, we have heard nothing about that proposal since the Fine Gael leadership election. Instead, we have a five year old Bill being dressed up as new and slotted into a suite of previously announced measures. It is a cynical and transparent effort to make the Government look busy on this matter and an attempt to create the appearance of action.

The truth is that Ireland does not have an effective way of preventing, detecting or prosecuting corruption. Our laws on corruption are scattered across several enactments, with responsibility for detecting it spread across a baffling number of different agencies. As a result, it is very rare to see successful prosecutions of corrupt practices in business or public life. Deputy O'Callaghan mentioned a number, but they represent only a handful of prosecutions in the context of the problems we have across our corporate world and the unhealthy relationship between politics and the business world. Even after tribunals of inquiry have spent millions of euro on investigations and even after they have made adverse findings against particular individuals, this is still the case. Rarely does anybody end up behind bars.

Fundamentally, we have no effective enforcement regime in this country. We may continue to see all sorts of new laws added to our Statute Book, but there will be very few consequences for those involved in corrupt behaviour in the absence of a dedicated law enforcement agency to tackle corruption. Enforcement is the key. Unless there are consequences for those involved in corrupt behaviour, it will continue. This is not good enough. Those responsible for corruption must be held to account and be seen to be held to account. If we never see people being held accountable for their actions, how can the public be expected to trust our institutions? This lack of accountability seriously undermines the authority of our public bodies and tarnishes our reputation at home and abroad. It is extremely dispiriting for people who try to operate within the law. Without accountability there is only impunity. As a result, it is not surprising that we see such low levels of public confidence in our institutions. The special Eurobarometer report on corruption for 2013 found that public confidence in our justice system was just 7%, which is 20% below the EU average. While our public institutions cannot function without the faith of the public faith, how can we, as Members of Parliament, expect the public to have faith in institutions which have proved to be so ineffective?

A particularly welcome aspect of the Bill is that it will give the courts the power to remove from office those convicted of a corruption offence. As I am sure others Members do, I often find it hard to stomach the fact that we are serving the in the same Parliament as someone who has been found to have received corrupt payments yet suffered no consequences for those actions. This goes to the root of the problem that notwithstanding what inquiries or tribunals one holds, corruption will continue if persons who have been found to have engaged in corrupt behaviour do not have to pay a price for it. Beyond that particular failure of accountability is a wider issue. Successive Governments have taken a laissez-faireapproach to corruption. If there was a real drive to tackle the problems we face, we would have seen action before now. Given the length of time Fine Gael Governments have had to process and examine the Mahon report, why are we still seeing such a fragmented approach to its recommendations? The only explanation is that the political will does not exist in Fine Gael to tackle corruption in any serious way.

It is curious that the Bill was rushed out after the Government's anti-corruption announcement, yet the Public Sector Standards Bill languishes in committee. Why are we introducing a Bill on corruption in public office that leaves the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, without the investigative and enforcement powers it needs to be truly effective? That is not to say SIPO does not do excellent work, but it is limited to monitoring political finance. There is no doubt that its remit could go far further and that its powers of investigation and enforcement are simply not sufficient.

In 2011, there were 22 valid complaints made to SIPO, but between 1995 and 2012, there were only 11 investigations concluded under the ethics Acts. That organisation has repeatedly called for more powers and measures such as undertaking investigations on its own initiative, the power to conduct hearings or make decisions with greater efficiency. Those requests, unfortunately, have fallen on deaf ears. Furthermore, the Mahon tribunal recommended the regulation of political donations at local level should be undertaken by an independent body such as SIPO. I note the Government's most recent position is that this recommendation will be considered in the context of establishing an independent electoral commission. While an independent electoral commission is long overdue why wait for this before regulating local election funding? There is already an existing body specifically tasked with managing political donations. The transfer of this responsibility to an empowered SIPO could easily be included in this legislation. It is a perfect opportunity, but regrettably it seems the Government is not taking that opportunity.

It is not enough to think about corruption solely in terms of how it should be punished once an act has taken place or after the event. We need to be much more proactive. We need to reduce the opportunities for corrupt practices in the first instance. We need to put accountability at the centre of public life. An independent anti-corruption agency as proposed by the Social Democrats would act as a powerful deterrent to corruption. This is what is urgently needed.

Earlier this year the International Civil Service Effectiveness Index highlighted several deficiencies in how our public service operates. We scored particularly poorly in terms of regulation and openness. The best way to deal with corrupt practices is to identify potential corruption and act before we are forced to deal with its consequences. Simply put, transparency in public office can be our greatest protection against corruption. This is why I believe we need to repeal the Official Secrets Act and the Ministers and Secretaries Act. We must make Ministers and senior civil servants responsible for their actions and accountable for their decisions. Currently those Acts, particularly the Ministers and Secretaries Act, provide a legal protection and cover for the political advice that is provided to Ministers. That is not acceptable. We should have a right to know whether advice given to a Minister was good or not and to know whether the Minister has accepted that advice and therefore who is responsible when things go wrong.

There would be nothing fundamentally wrong with this legislation, if it was part of a strategic suite of anti-corruption measures. Strategy was, however, completely absent from the ad hochodgepodge of old news the Government tried to pass off as a plan. We need these new corruption offences, but we need so much more. It is not good enough to divide corruption into artificial categories and build walls around them. We have seen time and again when corruption is uncovered in public office it is never confined to public officials. White-collar crime and corruption in public office go hand in hand. There are always business or other outside interests involved. This is why it is so disappointing that we are discussing these measures in isolation. I have already explained why I believe the Government needs to show far greater joined-up thinking in how it approaches this issue. However, it is clear from the measures announced earlier this month that there are few new ideas coming from Government. These are re-heated measures.

Earlier this year the trial of Seán FitzPatrick collapsed spectacularly as a result of the shambolic handling of the case by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, ODCE, the agency which is supposed to be the corporate watchdog. The litany of the failings of the ODCE needs thorough investigation and those responsible for the failings must be held accountable. The Minister requested a report on the affair from the ODCE. This was presented to the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fizgerald, on 23 June 2017 and almost five months later this report has yet to see the light of day. When I asked the Minister about this in the past week, there was yet another excuse for the delay in publishing it. In light of the extraordinary, and for the public, the infuriating, failings of the ODCE, surely the priority should have been to get to the bottom of the dysfunction within the ODCE. Instead, Government has come up with a plan to increase the powers and resources of a rebranded ODCE. There is no accountability. This proposal falls very far short of what is required and there is no sense of urgency on the part of Government. The proposal is for the ODCE to be re-jigged in mid-2019. Eighteen years after a deficient ODCE was established, an agency which has a very poor enforcement record and where the calamitous mistakes of the handling of the Fitzpatrick case were known since 2015, the Minister is saying he will do something in mid-2019. Is it any wonder that the public is so disillusioned with the Government and the agencies of State?

As I said, there are measures to be welcomed in this Bill, but they are a fraction of what we need. As it stands the powers to investigate and prosecute corruption are unevenly spread out amongst a vast array of public bodies, 13 in total. When corruption is identified the response is generally to set up a tribunal or a commission of investigation. Several million euro later and several years later we usually end up with a report that tells us what happened but does not result in anybody being brought to book. Tackling corruption in public office is a positive step but it is not enough if we do not have a dedicated agency with the power to investigate and prosecute that corruption. We know from bitter experience of tribunals where reports have come out recommending action to be taken that Government has ignored those recommendations and indeed when the report goes to the Garda Síochána or the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, we simply do not get the action that is required. I strongly believe that unless we address the failings in our investigative and enforcement model, the measures in this Bill will never lead to the punishment of wrong doing. Equally, there should be an effective system in place to investigate and prosecute white-collar crime and corruption in the corporate world. All of these things are connected and should be addressed comprehensively by Government. That is where our focus needs to be and it is precisely the area this Government does not have the courage to address.

See this speech in context