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

This has to be seen in the context of the attitude of successive Governments to SIPO and its seeking of more powers and resources over the past 20 years, in addition to the ignoring of its appeals. Particularly in the ethics area, SIPO's requests for additional powers and resources are completely ignored by the Government year after year. On ethics legislation, there was a draft Bill in 2015 that ran into the sand. We are still waiting for some serious action on ethics. The track record on this is not good. That has to be accepted. SIPO is not in a position at this stage to insist on anything because its pleas have been ignored for such a long time.

Those of us who have serious concerns about the likely efficacy of administrative or civil sanctions and who have been calling for criminal sanctions to be an option for SIPO have a right to be reassured. I hope we will be reassured that administrative sanctions work but we have serious doubts about it, just as we have serious doubts about the capacity of SIPO and the requirement for a commissioner to take the actions in question.

There is no point in doing this by half measures. We have seen half measures in the ethics area for far too long in this country. If we are going to do it, let us do it properly. When doing it properly in the context of serious doubts, the onus is on the Minister to show us that what he wants – the weaker regime he is insisting on – actually works. He should prove it to us by producing a review in three years' time. That does not need to be onerous. I hope the number of incidents will be small.

See this speech in context