Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion.

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I wish to draw the attention of the House to one valuable, distinctive and relevant example of this Private Members' motion. An independent consultant company which has expertise in winning parliamentary support travelled the corridors of Leinster House two to three months ago in the Lower House, the Upper House and at the committees, lobbying for Camelot. For those who may have forgotten, Camelot is a very cash rich gaming company which runs the British lottery and it has made a bid to run the Irish lottery. We are selling the Irish lottery for 20 years for money up-front. This is the great idea of the Government and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin. Initially, the Government looked for €500 million up-front, but that has now become €300 million and the good causes are not now being ring-fenced. This great gaming company, Camelot, does not take prisoners. It has well travelled swagmen who know how to deal with money when it is needed up-front and get the very best return as well as the very best opportunity to open up online gambling in Ireland to make a bigger profit. One would think that the company would not need a lobby group, but think again, it did.

This independent consultant lobbying company was quite brilliant. It has clients that include asset managers, fund administrators, hedge funds, banks, accountancy firms, lawyers, consultants and insurers and of course in this instance, Camelot, which was the reason it was here in the Upper House and the Lower House. This lobbying company is everything and everybody that the poor and those who play the lottery are not. We had a great lobbying company patrolling the House, influencing decisions. If it was not influencing decisions one would need to ask why it was here, as it had a unique opportunity to do so. This lobbying company is everything which the socially excluded are not about or what the people who play the lottery on a nightly basis are not about. This lobbying company prides itself on below the radar intelligence. One might say it was in the right place because the sale of the lottery could be considered to be below the radar of intelligence. Only for a slip of the tongue did I know anything about it. Why was I not consulted? Why did I not know that this lobbying company, working on behalf of Camelot, was being represented in the House and around our corridors?

The lobbying company also makes sense of the legislative environment in which its clients find themselves. How does it do that? Does it live under the stairs? Does it have a vote in the House? No, it does not but it has lobbying access here. It was peddling this kind of rubbish around the House, while at the same time representing a gaming company called Camelot. This lobbying company representing Camelot states it can craft its messages to senior decision makers. I thought we were supposed to be legislators who are in the business of honest and open representation and messages, and outside the cute craft of certain kinds of communication. This lobbying company builds and uses political support like other like-minded organisations such as Camelot. This lobbying company knows and, I am quoting it, "exactly where you need to be to influence decisions in your favour." It is influencing decisions around gaming companies and crawling the corridors of Leinster House. If ever we needed an update to the House on the general scheme of the heads of the Regulation of Lobbying Bill and if ever we had an urgent need for transparent and accountable regulations governing parliamentarians as my colleague pointed out in relation to any engagement with representations from the great corporate bodies, we need it now.

It is my opinion, after the beginning of the debate on the abolition of the Seanad, that the role of any real politician, or of any real Senator, is to take on the corporates, be they tobacco companies, alcohol companies or gaming companies or any other commercial and vested interest.

I asked on the Order of Business some months ago whether Senators and Deputies who were approached by this company would name themselves. Nobody did. It is not the place of Deputies or Senators to be wining and dining lobbyists or be informed or influenced by corporate bodies. Being informed or influenced by the great corporates is the antithesis of politics and democracy.