Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I beg to differ with my esteemed colleagues. On this one, they have missed the point completely because most NGOs would not be in a position to give large fees to a lobbyist to lobby on their behalf.

What we are looking at here is the scenario of the Galway tent that the Minister outlined previously, where if a lobbyist is paid to go around with bags of cash to lobby people, even if he or she does it within the parameters, we should know how much people are being lobbied, for example, how much the multinationals or big companies are paying the lobbyists to do the type of work that they are doing compared with an NGO which might be lobbying on the other side of an argument. For example, in the case of the tobacco sector, which was used by Senator Norris earlier, the tobacco companies could potentially spend hundreds of thousands of euro to hire a lobbyist to do a lot of work on their behalf whereas the NGOs lobbying on the other side of that argument would not have such sums available to them. In the era of transparency, that is exactly why one needs an amendment like this. It is so one can see when that type of activity is happening.

It is not about breaking down the costs of every NGO when they come to speak to a Minister. It is about the lobbyist who is paid, either on a contract or fee, to do this type of lobbying. That is essential if we are to have any real belief in the Bill. It is that era of the brown bags of cash going around the place which we want to move away from.