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

Senator Mullen raised an interesting point about transparency over international lobbying. He made the point that both liberals and conservatives alike may be concerned about interference from a left-wing or a right-wing group in another country. While that is an interesting debate to have and I want to have it, it does not relate to the amendment.

Senator Higgins pointed out the risk of a chilling effect on NGOs and notes the possibility of impersonation-type lobby groups. There are groups pretending to be green lobby groups that are actually funded by the opposite side. That is also a concern.

I will address the amendment that relates to ownership and State ownership, including financial disclosure. This issue of including financial disclosure requirements in returns to the register was considered when the Act was originally developed. It was then raised in the first and second statutory reviews of the Act. The Department has given much consideration to the practical ways this could be implemented. The report of the first review outlined the options for requiring financial disclosure and they were examined at the policy development stage. It was considered that including any financial disclosure on the register would require striking an appropriate balance, on the one hand, between required transparency while ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information and, on the other, safeguarding the right to privacy. It emerged that there would be significant administrative issues in establishing consistent and comparable financial data for inclusion in the register.

It was determined that it should not be a requirement to include such data. A balance needs to be struck between the requirement for more information to increase transparency and the level of administrative burden that the provision and evaluation of such information may place on the commission. In addition, it is important to remember that the spending on lobbying activities is not necessarily an accurate indicator of the impact of lobbying activity. For example, a lobbying campaign undertaken by a PR company that costs €100,000 might not have as much effect on the issue in question as a well placed phone call to a Minister that would have no financial cost at all.

I consider that at present it is more important to have correct and up-to-date information regarding lobbying events in each relevant period contained in the register. The commission has outlined that it liaises with those registered on the register in instances where a return may not meet the required standard and this work is done on a continual basis.

Considering the wording of the amendment a number of things stick out for me. One is this idea that we would determine whether a lobbying group had 50% of its income in any year. Does that mean that a lobby group that received 50% of its money 20 years ago and now they do not get any State funding? This language is not sufficiently precise. This lobbying Bill is not the place to carry out this form of financial disclosure. It would be open to interpretation and on our consultation with representatives of SIPO, they felt it would not be administrable. On those grounds, I am not accepting the amendment.