Do You Want Your Old Lobby Washed Down?

at

00117975

You may have seen yesterday’s Irish Examiner, in which PJ Mara, above, former Government Press secretary and now a director at Denis O’Brien’s Digicel – revealed

…how, as a lobbyist, he accessed key officials and ministers after he stopped working for Fianna Fáil.

He also shared his views on Fine Gael and Labour’s proposed lobbying regulations, warning:

“If that’s what they want to do, away with them [the Coalition]. But it’s still not going to stop people having quiet words in corners. People are going to find their way around that, if they want to.”

He should know, in fairness.

But is he right?

In a global comparative investigation of lobbying laws, Dr Raj Chari, of Trinity College, Dr Gary Murphy, of DCU, and Dr John Hogan, of DIT, adopted a ranking system developed by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) in the US to measure the effectiveness of lobbying legislation.

A score of 1-29 is seen as lowly regulated, 30-59 is medium regulated and 60 to 100 is highly regulated. A score of 60 is a pass.

They later added scores for Fine Gael and Labour’s proposed policies…

FGLAB

Hmm.

Dr Chari and Dr Murphy concluded:

“These scores would place both proposed pieces of legislation in the low‐regulation category.
This is particularly disappointing in the case of the Fine Gael proposal, coming 11 points below the lowest regulated jurisdiction in Canada—Manitoba. In fact, the Labour Party’s proposed legislation is very close to being in the medium‐regulation category. If this Bill included a ‘cooling‐off’ period for former legislators, then it would achieve a score of 31.

That neither proposal contains a ‘cooling‐off’ period for former legislators raises questions as to why this rule, common in both medium and high‐regulation jurisdictions, is absent here.

Even more ironic is the fact that such a cooling‐off period does exist in Ireland since 2004 for former senior civil servants and government officials, but not for politicians.”

International Trends in Lobbying Regulation: Lessons Learned for Ireland

(Mark Stedman/Photocall ireland)

Sponsored Link
Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie