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

I welcome the intention of this Bill and commend Deputy Mairéad Farrell on her work in this regard and on bringing it forward.

The purpose of the Bill is to allow for the implementation of several recommendations made by the Standards in Public Office Commission in 2019. At the time SIPO made a number of recommendations to improve and strengthen transparency and accountability in public office. Unfortunately, the Government of the time chose to ignore these recommendations. I remember raising them with then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and I was told that now was not the time to consider amending this legislation, whatever that meant. I tell the Minister there is no better time than now and I hope he will take this legislation, and indeed the comments of various Members of this House, on board.

This legislation is much-needed and already overdue, given that the original recommendations were made more than 18 months ago. We need to go much further, however. While this legislation proposes some much-needed reforms for those holding public office, Ireland still does not have an effective means of preventing, detecting and prosecuting corruption and white-collar crime. Various tribunals, commissions and Oireachtas inquiries have come and gone with few consequences for corrupt and reckless behaviour. Although this legislation goes some way towards addressing the long-standing revolving door between politics and the private sector, it really only scratches the surface when it comes to corruption and white-collar crime in this country. Anti-corruption law is spread across a range of legislation and responsibility for preventing and prosecuting corruption is likewise spread across a number of different agencies. Piecemeal reforms in recent years have fallen very far short of what is needed to protect Government decision-making from being unduly influenced by vested interests. While I welcome this legislation we need to go much further if we are serious about rectifying these wrongs.

One of the most annoying aspects of public life in this country is that when poor behaviour or suspected corruption takes place the response is inevitably to set up some kind of inquiry. There are so many different examples of various tribunals, commissions and inquiries that were established and in many cases went on for years and many of which heard evidence about serious corruption and yet because our laws have been so weak, we ended up, after spending much time and an awful lot of money, with nobody being held accountable. That really damages confidence in politics and it would have been better in some cases if nothing had been done about those breaches of standards because it really is very demoralising for people to see that kind of thing and see that there is no real appetite at a political level, certainly at Government level, to take this on. We need to learn from that and we have a responsibility to our own citizens. These problems have been highlighted on several occasions by international bodies, including the Group of States against Corruption, GRECO, and still there has been no reaction to that. Successive Governments have failed to take this issue seriously.

The Social Democrats first proposed the setting up of an independent anti-corruption agency in a motion brought to this House almost five years ago. I want to take this opportunity to stress again how badly needed this is in Irish politics and public life. Our detailed proposals are based on international best practice and cover corruption in both the public and private sphere. Without a dedicated and properly-resourced agency we will continue to see a range of laws on our Statute Book which may or may not meet international standards but which lead to few actual consequences for corrupt behaviour.

That being said, I want to express the Social Democrats’ support for the measures contained in this legislation. The Bill seeks to incorporate into its remit representative bodies which do not have full employees as well as informal coalitions which are engaged in lobbying. This is an important measure because it captures lobbying activity which may be conducted informally - on the golf course, over a few pints, after bumping into somebody or when people’s paths cross in social settings. Lobbying activity in all of these situations still seeks to influence political decision-making and that is particularly the case given the small size of this country and also the fact that there are such close connections between politics and business.

The measures in the Bill which relate to investigation and reporting are particularly important. The Social Democrats fully support the measures, which widen the commission’s ability to investigate and report on breaches of the code of conduct and contraventions of the Act. However, powers to investigate should go further and we believe the commission should be resourced fully to conduct thorough spot checks of a proportion of all lobbying returns filed. It should be enabled to name and shame lobbyists who contravene the law by publishing its investigation reports and doing that at an early date. Spot checks would give the commission, as well as the public, a better picture of overall compliance and would also ensure a better level of compliance out of fear, if nothing else.

Of particular importance are the Bill’s provisions around cooling-off periods which it extends from one to two years. Most important, the Bill makes failure to comply with cooling-off periods a contravention and it allows the commission to publish details in its annual report about any successful applications to waive a cooling-off period. Let us not forget that earlier this year a Fine Gael Senator resigned from the Seanad to lead a lobby group for financial investment companies. One could not make it up. The revolving door between politics and private businesses jeopardises transparency and accountability in politics and it is a practice which must stop if we, as politicians, expect the public to have trust in our politics. Without real enforcement powers there is no way to ensure this practise will not continue unchecked. This type of enforcement and reporting is very badly needed.

I want to touch on the provision to allow the commission to direct a designated public official to cease communication with a lobbyist or lobby group that is non-compliant with the Act. This goes back to the importance of enforceability. To date, the Act has, unfortunately, been treated by some politicians as more of a guideline than a rule. This type of behaviour is extremely harmful to public office. The stronger enforcement measures contained in the Bill would be a step in the right direction to strengthening accountability.

However, the Bill and these recommendations from SIPO are just one part of the big picture. The fact is that Ireland needs a major overhaul in how it deals with corruption and white-collar crime. There is nothing more dispiriting to law-abiding citizens than seeing people who are engaged in corruption, whether it is at the level of business, politics or the public sector, walking away scot-free, and we have too many examples of this in our recent history. This goes back to what I mentioned earlier about the need for an independent anti-corruption agency, which needs to be properly resourced and enabled to oversee legislation and agencies throughout the public service. The current piecemeal approach to responsibility is just not working.

There is a lot of work to be done in this area. There is a responsibility on politicians and Ministers if they are serious about restoring confidence in public life and the public sphere. There is an onus on anybody who is serious about this to restore confidence. Unless we are prepared to show we are serious about tackling this, unless we are prepared to out colleagues in the House who contravene the existing legislation, and unless we are prepared to bring in a meaningful agency with teeth that is properly resourced, we are never going to get to the bottom of this.

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