Lobbying bill could have been stronger

As Fianna Fáil’s bruised justice spokesman Niall Collins might confirm, inappropriate lobbying can have negative and unintended consequences. As our economy still shows lobbying by narrow interests can have spectacular, destructive and long-lasting consequences.

This week, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin brought the long-awaited Registration of Lobbying Bill to Cabinet. It represents the delivery of a cornerstone in the reform project but, unfortunately, falls some way short of what had been promised.

The Bill concentrates on establishing the nature, the frequency and the targets of lobbying rather than logging every communication. A register of lobbying and lobbyists is proposed and this will be accessible online. The register, which will be overseen by a regulator, will name those lobbying government ministers, departments or public bodies. This is a considerable advance, but it might be foolish to imagine that this legislation might facilitate the recording of every golf-course chat, every winner’s enclosure nudge nudge, as it would be impossible to hermetically seal those myriad channels of communication.