Dan Boyle (Green Party)

I move:

That this House welcomes the commitment in the reviewed Programme for Government to extend the provisions of the Code of Conduct for Civil Servants in relation to the acceptance of outside appointments and of consultancy engagement following resignation or retirement to all Public Servants in designated posts as to ensure that they shall not, within twelve months of resigning or retiring from the service:

(a) accept an offer of appointment from an employer outside the Civil Service where it is deemed to create a conflict of interest; and

(b) accept an engagement in a particular consultancy project, where the nature and terms of such appointment or engagement could lead to a conflict of interest;

without first obtaining approval from the Outside Appointments Boards and looks forward to legislation in this area being speedily enacted.

I welcome the Minister of State. The motion is taken directly from the reviewed programme for Government and the Green Party Members, in seeking the support of the House for it, will endeavour to underline the principle behind it.

We know from experience that in moving from important public sector roles which involve decision making and the acquiring and assessment of information, particularly commercial sensitive information, there is a need for a cooling off period. Such a provision is included in the code of conduct for civil servants and there is a proposal in the reviewed programme for Government to extend it to public servants. My colleagues will point to the areas in which there are inconsistencies and the reasons such an extension is needed. This debate provides an opportunity to discuss the conflicts of interest for those us of in elected public office and how measures can and should be put in place in that regard.

The reason there is a need for a cooling off period is not so much that we should presume that anyone leaving a public position to enter a remunerated position in the private sector would be automatically inclined towards engaging in base practices, but rather that there should be an assumption that those who serve in public office do so for the best of motives and that they would carry through on this philosophy, irrespective of whether they subsequently find themselves in public or private sector employment. A cooling off period is needed because we cannot allow the perception to take hold that this might be the case or that such a scenario might develop. I do not believe this to be unique to Irish politics or administration. The type of arguments we are making and would like to see enshrined in law have been shown by organisations such as Transparency International to be flawed throughout jurisdictions in many countries. If we were to put our legislation on a different level, we would be ahead of several other countries that have failed to tackle this difficulty in a more obvious way.

One of the reasons I believe we need to do this is that of international reputation. We are living in a time when how we are viewed by the outside world in terms of corporate governance issues is important. A particular example cited by Transparency International is the move by the former German Chancellor, Mr. Gerhard Schröder, to the board of the Russian company, Gazprom, which was treated with a degree of heavy scepticism, in particular in the United States. When these types of appointments are made, eyebrows are raised. There is a need to have in place proper national and international standards.

We have in place a code of standards for the Civil Service. It is fair to say we have developed a number of codes of standards for several areas of public life, including for Members of this and the other House and for employees and representatives of the Health Service Executive. There is also in place a code of conduct in respect of officeholders. There are differing standards in terms of how this particular principle applies. My colleague, Senator Dearey, will highlight how in particular a lack of this cooling off period in local government is one of the reasons we need to upgrade our legislation in this area. There have been many instances of people holding high rank county manager positions going straight from those positions into allied private sector positions which compromised their previous role and the people in the private sector to whom they subsequently allied themselves.

The wider issue in terms of how these standards should apply in public life will accompany the debate on the legislation. A recent media example applied at European Union level the principle included in this motion, namely, if within a set period a person, having held a particular public office, is offered a position, he or she must apply to an outside body seeking permission to do so and may be so granted if a conflict of interest is not seen to exist. Even at a European level this is not as strong as it could be. The idea of an ad hoc committee stating something is right or wrong and setting particular conditions and not having the means to police this effectively does not add to confidence in the process. Legislation in this area is about public confidence. It is not about the personal characteristics of the individual who finds himself or herself in this situation or about the presumption that corruption exists or will exist because of that situation. It is about having in place standards that ensure these questions cannot arise in the first instance.

When it comes to discussing the legislation, it should be taken as a given that 12 months is a sufficient cooling off period in respect of which a position should not be taken up unless there are exceptional circumstances. It is not the case that a person should have to disprove, rather that he or she must prove the compromise will not exist otherwise. I do not believe we have such legislation in place yet. We do have in place legislation in respect of civil servants and need such legislation in respect of the public service. I would argue we also need legislation in respect of elected public officeholders. This debate presents us with an opportunity in this regard. We will not be making decisions today but we can put on record the need to ensure as broad a reform in this area as possible. This is about public confidence.

In terms of how legislation in this area might affect an individual, we must also consider economic circumstances. In having in place strict legislation on a cooling off period, one is undermining a person's ability to earn remuneration and to seek new employment. The other side to this coin - ironically enough, we recently debated the issue of political pensions - is what type of safeguards are in place to ensure people, having left public office, are not tempted to take up compromising positions in the private sector. Issues such as parachute payments and how and when pension payments come into play are also a part of this debate. An individual should not be compromised from going into a private sector position because he or she held public office. At the same time, people need to be restricted, because of the office they held, from taking up specific private sector positions. It is a conundrum and something we must legislate for. We must also ensure no one suffers economic disadvantage.

An amendment to the motion will be moved later. I am unable to speak to the amendment until it has been moved and am also not in a position to say how it will be responded to by the Minister of State.