It was my great privilege to work with the former Minister of State, Eithne Fitzgerald, who introduced the Ethics in Public Office Act 1995 and later the Freedom of Information Act 1997. The Ethics in Public Office Act 1995 and the Electoral Act 1997 were the first parts of a framework of legislation designed to modernise our democracy and put a fundamental principle at its heart, namely, to protect it and to break a link – in the public mind and in reality – between business and politics.