Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 3:

In page 5, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following: "Amendment of Principal Act

7.The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 10:

"Transparency relating to the finances of lobbying bodies

10A.(1) Where a person, whether a natural person, a body corporate or an unincorporated body of persons, is registered in accordance with the terms of this Act and is in receipt of funding from a State source or sources to the extent of at least 50 per cent of its income in any year or from a non-state source which is a person to the extent of at least 50 per cent of its income in any year, the amount of such funding shall be stated on the register together with the identity of any such sources.

(2) In this section, "State source" includes all bodies or departments of State in receipt of exchequer funding and includes funding by the European Union or any other state or territory.".".

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This amendment proposes to amend the principal Act by the insertion of a section after section 10. The amendment relates to transparency in respect of the finances of lobbying bodies. It is clear in what it seeks to do.It seeks to require the registration of the fact that where at least 50% of the income of a registered body under the terms of this Act would come from a State or non-State source, it is a person to the extent that 50% of that would be a matter for registration.

This is Senator McDowell's amendment but it is one that I heartily support. In developing the case for this amendment I am speaking to my concerns and I do not know whether the examples I would have in mind are similar to those Senator McDowell would have in mind. Let us cast our minds to the question of the funding of politicians as an example. We all know we are required, as Members, to keep donation statements. There are also limits on the amount we can receive in any calendar year and donations to us above a certain threshold have to be declared. Let us think about why that is and why all of that matters. It is obvious; out of the goodness of their hearts, some people may donate money or resources because they want to help the democratic process but they also want to support and promote policy and legislation in a particular direction. There is nothing wrong with that and people are entitled to use their resources to put their money where their mouths are or, in some cases, to put their money where their mouths are not because there are those who do not want to be in the public eye and who do not want to be the ones making the argument or the laws in public. There are even those who do not want to be out canvassing door to door and making the case but they want to put their money where their mouths are not because they want to use their resources to support a particular person, policy or legislative outcome. We should never be afraid to say that this is a good thing.

However, it is a good thing that is capable of being abused, like all good things are, and that is capable of working against the common good. That is why there is transparency and why there are two ways in which we seek to limit the danger for politicians and from politicians. First is to put limits on the amount or extent to which somebody can provide support, and if they are from outside the country or are not residents or citizens they cannot donate or support at all. Second is to make sure there is transparency above a certain amount. The possibility of abuse is limited plus there is a transparency requirement. We will agree that while some of the aspects of this should maybe change. In general, this is a policy in pursuit of something that is good, acknowledging the existence of something that is good, namely political donations, and then seeking to regulate it because it needs to be regulated to keep it good.

Let us move from that area to the funding of lobbying groups and where they or registered organisations in this place get their money. There was a lot of conversation a number of years ago, for example, about whether money had been given by foreign organisations or individuals, for example, to organisations that were involved in advocacy on one side or the other of the abortion issue. It also arose before that in the context of the redefinition of "marriage" in the context of the marriage referendum. These sensitive social issues going on in our country and debates among our people were of great interest to other players outside our jurisdiction. I recall that George Soros's Open Society Foundation made no bones about the fact that it was funding Amnesty International at one point with a view to securing a certain outcome in the change of Ireland's abortion laws. That was highly controversial in my eyes and in the eyes of a lot of other people. It led to some proceedings in court involving SIPO and so on and so forth.

That issue of whether "outsiders" should influence national debates is important. Again, there are no absolutes in this area and it can be entirely legitimate for somebody outside of our jurisdiction to take a strong view on the promotion of human rights in a particular country; then it seems on the face of it to be legitimate that they should try to support that case in some way, except that when it gets to a certain extent or point, there is a danger that democracy is being usurped. If somebody like George Soros and his Open Society Foundation, are capable of bankrolling major campaigns in another country, which perhaps might not have the resources to compete with that, then we can see how the ability of the people of that country to order their affairs could be seriously undermined.

There have been debates about the way in which countries such as Russia and Hungary have sought to control the involvement of external lobby groups in the running of their affairs. Some of those are regimes we would not admire, and one would root for the lobby groups, and some of them are regimes of which we would agree that they might have a case to make about external interference. All of that is in the background so when we come to this situation about a lobby group in Ireland seeking to advance particular policy points, we can ask the same questions. Ought they be getting money from the State and ought they be transparent about it?

I think, in particular in recent times, of the activities of the National Women's Council of Ireland, for example, which does not represent all women and which certainly does not represent all women’s' organisations in terms of its extreme advocacy on abortion, which we have seen in these days. Yet, it gets an awful lot of taxpayer's money to do what it does and under the principle of fungibility of money, whatever it gets its money for from the State, it effectively bankrolls its pro-abortion advocacy. Some Members will say they have no problem with that but all I am doing here is drawing people's attention to the potential problem. When the apparatus of power is acting in the interests, not just of the 40% or 50% who elected the Government, but of all society and is responsible for the use of all of taxpayers' money, we have to be careful about how the people's money may be used to press agendas that do not reflect all of the people's concerns. That has to be an issue of concern in a democracy, for example, no matter what side of the debate one would be on.

Though this may not be what is in the minds of Senators McDowell or Boylan in bringing forward the amendment, that is a core issue. Senator Boylan is looking at me and she wants to get in so I will finish up. It is important that we set out the rationale for this and I would not want to do less than justice to Senator McDowell's fine amendment because there is an issue here of how taxpayer's money is used by lobby groups and whether we always know where they are getting their money from and how much they are getting. It seems to me to be a minimalist enough proposed amendment to require that where as much as 50% of a body that is subject to registration is getting its money either from a State source or from some other single person's source, that this is something which there is a legitimate public interest in knowing about.