Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators Higgins and Ruane for taking the time to table these amendments. Amendment No. 1 proposes to reset the period between statutory reviews to three years and to allow for a shorter timeframe if the Minister deems it appropriate.

Amendments Nos. 9 and 13 propose the introduction of two new reviews. The first would evaluate the impact of administrative sanctions and the capacity of the SIPO to impose this regime three years after the system becomes operable. The second new review would, within 12 months, report on restrictions on post-term employment as a lobbyist. Section 2 of the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015 obliges the Minister to conduct a review of the operation of the legislation every three years and to make a report of the findings of each review along with the conclusions drawn from same to the Houses of the Oireachtas. There have been three reviews of the legislation since it was enacted in 2015. As the Act already provides for a regular comprehensive review regime, I do not consider that any additional review systems are required.

Section 2 of the Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2022 amends section 2 of the 2015 Act to allow for the period between statutory reviews of the Act to be extended from three to five years. Following the recent in-depth review of the Act, I have decided the review period should be five years. There are several reasons for this. First, this Bill must supplement other legislative provisions for scrutinising the impact of legislation. This amending legislation, like all legislation, will be subject to post-legislative scrutiny one year after enactment. Second, the experience of the statutory reviews of the 2015 Act has been that conducting a review every three years does not allow enough time to see the impact of changes to the legislation. Third, SIPO has stated that it would not object to an increase in the intervals at which such reviews take place, provided those intervals remain reasonable. Furthermore, my officials keep in close contact with SIPO regarding the operation of the legislation, in addition to the formal statutory review process.

There will be nothing to prevent my Department conducting a review within an earlier timeframe if the situation should warrant it. In the most recent example, the Minister decided to have an early review because it was deemed to be warranted based on what had happened. A review takes approximately a year to complete. Being in a constant period of review is not a good thing. It takes some time to work out whether changes are having an effect. My Department has consulted extensively with SIPO on all the changes proposed in the Bill. That is really worthwhile because it affords us the perspective of the people who are at the coalface and who see every day what it is like to implement and operate the existing laws. The proposed changes have not been put forward in a vacuum. For these reasons, I am rejecting the Senators' amendments.