Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I join in the Minister's earlier remarks to congratulate Deputy Mairéad Farrell on the introduction of her first legislation. No doubt it will not be the last. There will be many more.

I am glad to say that the Labour Party supports this Bill. This is a Bill that we can unite on. It is absolutely essential in terms of ensuring that there is the maximum confidence in politics and in how we govern this country.

My party has a long, proud and unique track record on ethics legislation in this country. In the 1980s we stood almost alone against corruption in local government and the poisoning and corrupting influence of big money on politics and governance in this country. In the 1990s we produced Ireland's first major suite of legislation on ethics in public life. We shone a light on how government is conducted and on how decisions are made in our name and on our behalf when we introduced freedom of information legislation in the mid-1990s. In 2015, as the Minister has graciously acknowledged, my colleague, then Minister, Deputy Howlin, after bringing in stringent limits to the amount of cash that an individual politician or a party could receive as a donation, then went on to bring in laws and regulations to govern and regulate the system of lobbying in this country.

Ireland had been, as we all know, notorious for being a country where things were done because of who one knew, not what one knew or the power or authority of the case that one made. We wanted to change not only that practice but the culture too. Of course, one citizen's lobbying is another's advocacy. For some, big businesses lobby while NGOs advocate.

Lobbying is a fact of life, and executed to the letter and spirit of the 2015 Regulation of Lobbying Act, it can contribute to a better understanding for all of us of complex issues before we make important decisions. In a republic, all citizens, even those with whom we disagree, are entitled to be heard. The point is the process needs to be conducted on a level playing field where we know who is lobbying whom, for what purpose and, indeed, how frequently, and this is what the 2015 Act sought to achieve. The legislation has to a degree served us well, as has the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, but it can only enforce the laws that this House gives it. It is timely now, after almost five years of this legislation being in existence and over three years of the operation of the Act, that we identify where the gaps are in practice and seek to plug those gaps and address the lacuna that are there. It is crucial for transparency in our system of lobbying regulation and it is critical for confidence in our political system and in our institutions.

This Bill before us this evening, as has been said by a multiplicity of contributors, is a straightforward attempt to legislate to deal with some of the shortcomings in the Act, many of which have been identified by SIPO itself in its annual reviews. I do not plan to comment on all of the measures proposed here other than to say that many are overdue and some, in my view, are more urgent than others.

There is a strong case, for example, for the code of conduct that has been referenced earlier on to be given more weight and, arguably, for it to be placed on a statutory footing. This would help in terms of enforcement where breaches occur. Changes to the scope of the Act as it applies to coalitions of business interests are absolutely necessary. Of course, this must avoid any unintended consequences such as, for example, of holding coalitions of NGOs to the same legal standards as the financial services industry or, to name another active sector on the business side, groups of fossil fuel firms.

The role of designated officials in supporting the Act is an important one and it needs attention. I have been lobbied, as has everyone else in this House, by countless organisations over the years. I remember being lobbied a couple of years ago by an organisation that everybody, even if one was not familiar with them, will be familiar with now - the National Association of General Practitioners, GPs - only to find when I checked that it did not record the engagement in its lobbying returns. For clarity, that meeting was in relation to the implementation of measures contained in the 2017 Competition (Amendment) Act, a Bill that was developed by me and my colleague, Senator Bacik. The Act certainly needs to be beefed up in this regard. The idea that designated public officials such as Oireachtas Members could be supported to bring to the attention of SIPO lobbying that does not happen in the context of the regulations we have at present, where breaches may occur or where it is unsatisfactory, is an important innovation and something we need to be conscious of. We need to be empowered to notify SIPO when we are not happen with how somebody conducts his or her business and where he or she is not in compliance, in our view, with the letter and spirit of the legislation. That would support good practice for everybody and send a message that bad behaviour would not be tolerated.

We have known, as SIPO has recorded, that section 22 is open to abuse and needs to be enhanced. The case of the recent former Minister of State tunnelling his way from these Houses three months after leaving office to a new gig lobbying for the sector for which he had policy responsibility and with no effort whatsoever to engage with the relevant authority in advance is proof, if we needed it, that our laws on lobbying and post-term employment need to be reviewed. The Minister acknowledged that and has done so time and again. The Minister has acknowledged that I published a Bill in this regard, and he referenced that earlier on. The proposed change to section 22 in my proposals would give the Standards in Public Office Commission the power to investigate and sanction former politicians who breach lobbying and ethics rules. My Bill also provides for penalties, including a class C of up to €2,500 and up to two years in prison, for anyone found to have been in breach of section 22.

There is widespread public concern, as has been acknowledged in the House time and again, at the revolving door between former Government members and the financial services sector, for example, and to what is now, in my view, a cavalier attitude to the practice of lobbying. Our experience of the 2015 Act tells us that investigatory and enforcement powers in respect of section 22 are required, that contravention of that section should be deemed to be a relevant contravention under section 18 and an actual offence under section 20 of the Act, and also that the Commission must be empowered to investigate former politicians and officials post term.

We cannot separate the issue of lobbying and ethics in public life from the question of big money in politics. The annual donations report from SIPO was published today. Mr. Michael Brennan writes this evening in the Business Postonline that, "Voters will be astonished to learn that the country's political parties only managed to attract €175,000 in disclosed donations last year." Astonished, they must be. "Disclosed donations" is the operative phrase. We know now, as a result of questions I put to the Standards in Public Office Commission, that the €4 million left to Sinn Féin by the late William Hampton was expressly left to Sinn Féin in this State but was politically laundered in the North to avoid the gaze of the authorities here.

Our laws prohibit accepting any donations above €2,500. This €4 million was a hundred times more than the figure of just over €40,000 that that party declared in donations for 2019. This is a stroke that would have made the late Charles Haughey blush.

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