Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

To be clear, I am not making any personal charge. I am just giving a description of the jobs the individuals in question had and now have, and it is 100% accurate. For example, when they sit down across the table from the Government, which has Fine Gael in it, it clearly suits the banks to have on their side a former senior member of Fine Gael. That clearly suits their interests and clearly greases the wheels of communications. The social dialogue, the chats, the informal access, and all of that, are made easier by having a former senior politician on one's side.

The point about physical access was well made by Deputy Shortall. It is a fact that there are lobbyists who are allowed to drive in through the front gates of our national Parliament, park their cars alongside Deputies and Senators, get out of their cars together, have a chat about the weather, politics and what is happening and, while they are it, say "Oh, could I just ask about that and how is that going?" That is entirely inappropriate. It is a distortion of any basic idea of what democracy is supposed to look like.

There was an example a couple of years ago. I will not name the person but a former press secretary took up a role with public relations company. This person was reported to be repeatedly asking the Fine Gael Chairman of the climate committee for details of private deliberations on what was described as a controversial Bill to ban oil and gas exploration. This is according to Hugh O'Connell in the Irish Independentin 2019. The Bill in question was the Planning and Development (Climate Emergency Measures) (Amendment) Bill 2021, which was introduced by People Before Profit to ban oil and gas exploration licences. Again, the revolving door was being used to get access to get information to pursue, in this case, the interests of the fossil fuel industry, which is certainly among one of the most destructive, damaging and evil industries in our society.

No one else can have these types of access, which are bought and paid for and are not accessible to ordinary people. I gave the example at the time of the so-called "Leo the leak" scandal when there was ready access to the Tánaiste by the head of the National Association of General Practitioners, NAGP, while, at the same time, paramedics organised in the National Ambulance Service Representative Association, NASRA, who were on a picket line seeking to be recognised and dealt with, were not able to get the sort of access that the NAGP was able to get. All of that is without even dealing with all of the other old boys' network that exist - the clubs, debating societies and social circles within which Ireland's elite circulate, meet and decide what is in the best interests of the "nation". The reality is that some lobbyists will always have preferential access to and influence on the political elite and the senior civil servants they meet.

Let us take the role of the Construction Industry Federation, CIF, which is on the public record. The CIF lobbied for the first-time buyer's scheme. That is in their documents. It appeared at the time as a mechanism for getting homes for first-time buyers. In the Government's presentation, who could possibly object to that? Of course, the role of the CIF is not to lobby in the interests of first-time buyers but to lobby in the interests of the construction industry in order to maximise its profits. That was the purpose of the scheme. It was called the help-to-buy scheme but in reality it is a help-to-profit scheme. The CIF has even been given quasi-statutory functions with the recent register relating to building standards. Clearly, what it says has significantly more impact on the Government and senior civil servants than, for example, what trade union officials might say.

There are continuous revolving doors from Government to private lobbying and representative organisations, which are effectively lobbying organisations. The same thing applies with civil servants. There was a recent article on this recently in the Irish Independent. I will not name the people but 11 key officials who left NAMA went with their contacts and phone numbers into private real estate work or related firms. None of that is deemed to be corrupt. None of it would breach the Lobbying Act, either as it is now or as it will be. It is, however, a small example of how Ireland works. People ask how we could have the kind of society we have, how one of the richest countries in the world has health and education crises and a complete absence of action on climate change, how we got here and how we can have this tax haven system. Part of the answer is the massive influence that the top 1% have on politics in this country. This is part of how that is expressed.

I will conclude on what should be done. At the very least, the requests from Transparency International should be acted on. These include extending the standard cooling-off period to two years. The argument being made against this, which is that we have to pay a lot of attention to the rights of former politicians to get a job in lobbying, is a bit ludicrous. Nobody else in the world has the right to a job in lobbying. The only reason these people are getting access to those jobs is that they are former politicians.

They would not get it otherwise. There is the idea that these people have some innate right and we need to give significant weight to that. There are plenty of other jobs in the world. Most people do not get access to these lobbying jobs and would not have a chance. We should make it clear there is at least a two-year cooling-off period during which people cannot walk out of politics and into a lobbying job, for obvious reasons. Clearly the interest of society as a whole in not having this inappropriate influence takes significant precedence over the individual right of former Teachtaí Dála or Ministers to get jobs in lobbying firms.

Second is the categorisation of breaches of cooling-off periods and other post-term employment regulations as offences. It is bizarre to say these are not offences. There is the outright ban on all Members of the Oireachtas and members of local authorities from acting as lobbyists or receiving income for the purpose of influencing public policy. Other points I thought were strong include the fact that there should be a requirement to disclose not just the source but also the amount of funding received or fees charged by lobbyists to the lobbying regulator, as well as details of gifts, hospitality or travel provided to the targets of lobbying.

I echo the point Deputy Shortall made on access. It is ridiculous enough that former Teachtaí Dála get access to the car park. Car parking for life should be gone. We do not need this massive car park in the middle of town, encouraging people to drive into town forever. People should lose access. If, let us say, there is a cooling-off period of two years and afterwards people become lobbyists, they should then be lobbyists like everybody else. They should not have special privileges relating to the fact they were previously elected. They give that up for the period when they are lobbyists so people are not able to waltz in here and get easy access. We cannot take their phone books away, stop them calling people or stop them having the social relations they have, but at least it sends a signal that such access is inappropriate and that we are opposed to the revolving door continuing to revolve.

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