Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 75: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the effort made to date to bring forward legislation to regulate lobbyists as promised in the programme for Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35143/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Arising from previous research completed by the Institute of Public Administration on behalf of the Department in 2004, my Department commissioned further research by a Trinity College / Dublin City University joint team to establish a clear profile of formal systems for regulating lobbyists in public life in certain jurisdictions, thereby facilitating an assessment of their relevance to public life in Ireland. This research report, entitled Examining and Assessing the Regulation of Lobbyists in Canada, the USA, the EU institutions, and Germany has been published electronically on my Department's website and copies of the report were placed in the Oireachtas Library in June 2007.

The Trinity / DCU report provides an overview of the rules and regulations at national and state/ province level in the USA and Canada, at national level in Germany and in the EU Institutions. The systems of regulation extant in these areas are classified by the research team using three categories: lowly regulated, medium regulated and highly regulated. These categories are based on the registration regimes and the nature and extent of periodic reporting to oversight bodies that lobbyists are obliged to undertake. The Trinity / DCU report also details the research team's views concerning the advantages and disadvantages of each of the three categories of regulation.

The Programme for Government includes a commitment to consider legislation to regulate lobbyists, and this will be taken forward having regard to the conclusions of the Trinity College / Dublin City University report and emerging developments at international level.