Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We would have a number of variations of the law, even within this House, dare I say it, given one or two of the contributions made. Grassroots organisations and astroturfing are captured. Section 5(4) refers to communications made personally, "directly or indirectly". If a person is indirectly getting people to make the communications, that person will be captured by the legislation. Not-for-profit organisations need not fear this. Having their names up in lights will be a good thing for them. More people will be drawn to them, as they are not hiding what they are doing but are, rather, proud of it.

I fully endorse what Senator Whelan said about this fitting into a jigsaw of legislation. I spoke about the practical implementation of the Bill. The Senator referred to my perseverance on this aspect. I attempted it a few times in Opposition but I always knew I would have more success in Government.

Senator Norris has, unfortunately, left, to do other business no doubt. He welcomed the Bill but described it as timid. I do not agree with this. It strikes the right balance and a lot of work has gone into it to achieve this. The Senator raised the issue of the use of the AV room, and no more than the issue raised by Senator Byrne on access to the House, this is a matter proper to the House and over which I have no control.

Senator Norris also spoke about delayed publication and section 14. The Senator misstated this. If one looks at section 14 it is not the case that if an issue falls within one of the categories listed in subsection (1)(a) - that is that it would have a serious adverse effect on the financial interests of the State, the national economy or business interests generally or the business interests of any description of persons - the publication of the information will be delayed. If it falls into one of those categories, it will be a matter for the Standards in Public Office Commission to consider if publication should be delayed. Section 14(4) provides that if it appears to the commission that the public interest would be better served by delaying it, it may make that decision. This is the operative phrase. The commission can only delay it if it considers it better serves the public interest to do so. It is not a get-out clause and I hope Senator Norris accepts this. The Senator also spoke about having a code of conduct in the Bill. I have never seen codes of conduct form part of legislation.

I thank Senator Coghlan for his support. I have made note of the points he made. Senator Barrett spoke about the banking crisis and how the issue of lobbyists and a register of lobbyists was sorely needed during that period. He spoke about the Finance Bill and being able to discern the authors of sections of it. This is part of policy formation. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan and I spend days in advance of the budget listening to anyone and everyone who want to present a case on what should be done. This is what a functioning democracy is about. We listen to the views of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Irish employers bodies and all the various farm organisations. We listen to dozens of organisations under the social pillar who make presentations on everything from care of the elderly to housing and so on. Sometimes they make convincing arguments and this migrates into legislation in the form of the Finance Bill. This is a good way of doing it, because the Minister has to stand up in the House, be accountable for the legislation and robustly defend it.

I wish to blow a bit of a trumpet on one other point to draw awareness to it. Senator Barrett mentioned the need for a strong Government economic service.

I agree with him and that is why we created such a thing.

We have created, and it is important to note as it is not that well known yet, the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service. We started in 2012 and now have 70 trained economists who work across a range of Departments. Obviously they were professional economists before being recruited but they were trained in my Department on the specifics of economic policy. They work across a range of Departments and we will recruit more of them. They have published a range of papers on issues.

I hope Senator Barrett can help me because his voice is important in regards to this matter. By design, the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service, is free of any influence from me or any Government Minister and independently evaluates public policy. I have read in the newspapers, when they published their papers on various topics, the views are assumed to be those of the Department or my views for which I am attacked. In order to have rigorous debate we must have independent evaluation. I hope that somebody somewhere will say that it is an important concept to preserve and expand.

I thank Senators for their attention and look forward to coming back in the very near future for Committee Stage.