Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It would not be perfect but it would give responsibility to somebody to record any lobbying. Otherwise, there would be carte blanche. There could be hundreds of other suggestions of how to deal with this and somebody could be given the job of recording what, if any, lobbying takes place when one is on official business. We do not envisage this applying in Santa Ponsa or the Isle of Man, although somebody from the Isle of Man lobbying on banking law would not be covered by the definition if the lobbying happened in the Isle of Man. There may be some middle ground covering official business abroad at the very least, even if we do not manage to include holidays, etc.