Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Before coming to the Bill, it has to be said that all people want in life is that things are proper and above board and that people behave in a way that is right and lawful. There is a place in the world for lobbying. Of course there is. There is a place for lobbyists.

Different organisations are named here on the record of the Dáil. I will take as an example the CIF. I will say the polar opposite of what Deputies have just been listening to. The reason is that I believe in work and in people working. When I hear a person elected to the Dáil talking about the political elite, it strikes me that perhaps the person talking is a member of the political elite. Is he not elected, rightfully and gainfully? He came here with a democratic right to be here. Is he not a member of the political elite? Here he is condemning the political elite and talking about the other elite in society. Who are we talking about? We are talking about people that got educated, worked hard and studied. Whether they became a judge, barrister, solicitor, lawyer or county manager, are they the elite of Irish society? To me they are ordinary people who got up off their backsides. Their parents might have worked hard. They worked hard and studied hard. They were not dragging themselves around the place. They drove themselves on, worked, got jobs and progressed in Irish life, and more luck to them. Is there anything wrong in the world with that?

I want to come back to the CIF for fear that people in Ireland would think everyone in the Dáil is the same and that we pick on organisations that do good work. Some people come in here and seem to want to pick on groups like that but to me a group like that comprises respectable people representing a respectable industry, namely, the construction industry. There are developers in Ireland who are highly respectable and highly regarded people. There are people building houses and making homes for people with 50 years. I know of people who started with nothing, went to work on a building site on a bicycle and are now building houses with 50 years. People who are in their 70s, and thankfully they are still building homes.

One of them recently said this to me, and it hurt me badly when he said it because of how right he was. "Michael", he said, "isn't it awful? Long ago when I was building a scheme of houses, the one group of people that you were guaranteed would be able to get a mortgage and buy one of my homes were the Garda and the nurse and the person like that." He is always building affordable houses. He was not a fly-by-night who came along and went. He stood the test of time. He still employs people. I remind Deputies there is nothing wrong with employing people. There is nothing wrong with people who get up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. and create work. It is not all about being in here talking about how we should all be on a four-day week and go home, lie down and watch "Coronation Street" type of a thing. This man, who has been building houses with 50 years, said it was awful that, despite his best efforts, the Garda and nurse who want to buy a house find it is priced outside of their range. It is awful to think we are in that situation.

There is continuous talk in here about the developers, the elite and the this and that. For God's sake, what do we want? Is it to have nothing, no developers and nobody creating work? Who will build the houses? One of the most important things we had in Ireland in the past was the small builder. Every parish had a small builder who might build one or two houses per year and create a bit of local employment. Between themselves and subcontractors, they might have one or two permanent members of staff. If we take what some people are saying in here, it is as though there was something wrong with those people as well. Maybe some Teachtaí Dála would rather if everybody was drawing the dole or jobseeker's payments. Is that what people want?

There is talk of the awfulness of maximising profits. What about the shops and different businesses that are trying to keep their doors open? They are trying to keep the jobs they have created going and then they turn on the television or radio and hear Teachtaí Dála talking about maximising profits. These people are running a business. They are paying rates and insurance and trying to pay the electricity bill. They are trying to ensure their workers get holiday pay, to keep the doors open and to provide a service. What do they get for it? There are people standing up here talking about these awful people trying to make a profit. If they listened to some of the tripe that comes out of some people's mouths in here, they would ask what those people are doing in here. These people who are talking are the political elite they are talking about. I am sorry for going on about somebody who is raving but I have to answer it back because when you hear rubbish in the Dáil, sometimes you have to call it out for what it is. When it looks like rubbish, it is rubbish.

Lobbying is generally defined as any direct or indirect communication with public officials, decision makers or representatives for the purpose of influencing public decision-making and carried out on behalf of any organised group. This to me is an important job of work because sometimes we need people to talk up for smaller groups. That is why, for instance, across in Buswells Hotel and over in the audiovisual room today we had people - do Deputies want to call them lobbyists? - from the stuttering awareness group of Ireland. I listened intently to them for the last hour concerning how they have done so well in life and telling personal stories about themselves. They are here lobbying and want us to be aware of their plight. Is there anything wrong with that? Would we have some people on the left thinking that is some type of undue influence on us? This is what we are here for - to listen to people who are making their case.

They might be making their case on behalf of the farmers, the pharmacists, the doctors or the nurses. They might be making their case on behalf of a wide variety of different groups, such as the Society of the Irish Motor Industry. Our job is to listen to those people. This Bill comes at a time when public trust in government is at an all-time low. The practice of lobbying is widely associated with secrecy and unfair advantage. Why do people think that? They think it because they hear things like the speech we heard earlier highlighting it, trying to pour petrol on it and making it out to be something it is not. In the years I have been here, the lobbying I have seen has been what I would call highly respectable, sound and well thought-out. It has involved people coming here and making their points and their voices heard.

There have been cases where there must be a cooling-off period. If a person was a Minister or a politician, then of course there should be a cooling-off period. Unlike other speakers, I would turn it around. If a person has experience in a Department, maybe they would be a very good person to speak up for an organisation because they would know how to do it. I will mention as an example the way lobbying goes on in America. I would not be a fan of much of what happens there because it seems that big bucks are involved, but lobbying can be the only way that people can be heard and noticed by government there. Things have gone wrong in the past because people used their advantage unfairly but the majority of people are not like that. Retired politicians, county managers or senior engineers who worked with local authorities might have a great insight into what an organisation needs and might understand how they can best put forward their case. There is nothing wrong with that.

Lobbying is an integral part of a healthy democracy and is closely related to universal values such as freedom of speech and the right to petition government. It allows for various interest groups to present their views on public decisions that may come to affect them. It has the potential to enhance the quality of decision-making by providing channels for the input of expertise on increasingly technical issues to legislators and decision-makers. However, lobbying must be ethical and transparent. At its core, its objective must be to help policy development. That is very important. Over recent years, we have witnessed multiple scandals in Ireland and throughout Europe demonstrating that without clear and enforceable rules a select number of voices with better resources and contacts can come to dominate political decision-making. At the very least, this can skew individual decisions; and at worst, it can lead to a wide-scale institutional and state capture.

Unfair and opaque lobbying practices constitute one of the key corruption risks facing Ireland and Europe, according to Transparency International. Six out of ten European citizens consider their government to be seriously influenced or entirely co-opted by a few vested interests. Any serious effort to combat undue influence in politics must recognise that transparency measures must be accompanied by a broader measure to strengthen public integrity and to promote opportunities for access by a wide range of citizens to the political system. The overall results of various research on Irish legislation and protections around lobbying have given serious cause for concern and suggest that attempts to date to promote open and ethical lobbying standards by governments, political parties and lobbyists have been piecemeal and ineffective. In Ireland, much of the influence of lobbyists remains hidden and informal. That is why we have to ensure we do not allow the type of behaviour we saw in the banking sector to happen again. There was the whole scandal with the mortgages in the banks and what happened with Bank of Ireland and the way they mistreated their customers. We must ensure that type of situation is not allowed to happen again.

The measures in the new Bill have been accused of being technical rather than substantive by some commentators. The general feeling in the public seems to be that much further action is needed to restore public confidence in policy-making. That brings me back to the speeches that have been made here. If you listened to the speech that was made before mine, you would ask how in the name of God we could have any confidence whatsoever in policy-making. Again, we are not all full of negativity like others. The Bill provides for a cooling-off period of at least a year, and maybe longer, during which former Ministers, special advisers and senior officials will not be allowed to become lobbyists.

I welcome anything that will ensure two things: first, that wrong-doing will not happen; and second, that the lobbying I am used to, which involves people coming before us in the audiovisual room or in Buswells Hotel, will continue. The Irish Farmers Association, IFA, for example, comes up here once a year in advance of the budget to make its case, and rightfully so. Would some people like that to stop? Would some people like if such organisations could not highlight inadequacies in Government policy, thereby facilitating us to come in here and fight on their behalf? That would undermine democracy. We must be very careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We want to make sure we will be voices for the people in an honest and straight way. When I do a clinic in Kerry on a Monday night, a young person or someone who is middle-aged or old might tell me that something is wrong. Then, on Tuesday, I can stand up here and bring a Minister, the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste to task by mentioning what was highlighted to me the previous night. Is that not democracy and what it is all about? If a sick child whose illness is not recognised by the HSE for funding is in trouble, is it not a great thing to be able to come before the Dáil to highlight that? That to me is real politics and real work. That is what it is all about.

I thank the Minister for listening. I will finish the way I started. Sometimes when you listen to what is said in this Chamber, it would make you think. That is all I can say.

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