Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to speak on this important Bill. I also want to thank my colleagues, Deputies Doherty and Mairéad Farrell, for bringing forward the Bill and their offices for all of the hard work they have done to try to regulate the area of lobbying.

Given all that has happened this year, this is a very timely Bill. The Minister probably knows and should acknowledge that. Everyone in the State, with the possible exception of those who have sat on successive Government benches, knows that the problem of the cosy consensus between big business, finance and politics must come to an end. Most people know that a culture of insiders and outsiders, or a little bit of "Upstairs, Downstairs", has been created over decades. The vast majority of people are on the outside. The likes of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and their mates in the Green Party are inside the tent.

When one is inside the tent, one gets to rub shoulders with banks, big finance, multinational corporations, insurance companies and hedge funds. Those outside the tent are ordinary people who try their best and work hard. No matter how hard they work, the system always seems to work against them. When they see former Ministers and Ministers of State from the Department of Finance lobbying for investment funds, banks and large corporations, they know why that is.

With the greatest of respect to some who have made that journey, the public know that for many of them it is not for their insight, intellect or hard work that they have been hired as lobbyists by these organisations. They are being taken on to give these companies access to the corridors of power because their friends are in the Minister's chair, they have all of the Ministers' numbers in their phones and can open doors that others simply cannot. This says so much about the type of Government that exists - a Government that would facilitate such lobbying by big finance and business and say that it is not the right time now to do the right thing and that we will have accountability but not now. As I have said, the Government is allergic to accountability.

It is the same Government that ignores workers and trade unions and pushes SMEs, microbusinesses and small family-run businesses to one side. Nowhere was this more evident than during the summer when the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, and the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, visited their friend and former Fine Gael Minister of State at the Department of Finance and MEP, Brian Hayes, who is now the CEO of Banking & Payments Federation Ireland. They went to him to talk about the pillar banks, of which the State is the main shareholder in many cases. Extending mortgage payment breaks for those affected by the Covid crisis for another six months was on the agenda. Two Fine Gael Ministers met a former Fine Gael Minister of State and now banking lobbyist about payment breaks for ordinary working people. It is no wonder that the answer was "No" and mortgage holders here were not given the same protection as their peers in other European countries.

These practices are corrosive to democracy. They undermine ordinary people's expectations and belief that our political system is responsive to their needs rather than the needs of well-heeled and unelected special interest groups. This is an urgent and necessary Bill and Sinn Féin will seek cross-party support. Now is the right time to do the right thing.

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