Business Opinion:Once a farm leader, then a PD minister, now chief of one of the most powerful business lobbies in the land. Tom Parlon has changed sides before, but his appointment as director-general of the Construction Industry Federation is a career change and three-quarters, writes Arthur Beesley.

Unlike the senior officials who served under his watch when he was minister of state with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, he is completely unencumbered in his move to big business from the political world. Not long after voters in Laois/Offaly showed him the red card, he is set to become the voice of a €37 billion industry whose fortunes at practically every turn will be coloured by Government policy and expenditure. Enriched to a massive extent in the boom years, the industry has every reason to keep an inside track on the Government.

The very administration in which Parlon held an important post before the electorate gave him "a right kick in the backside" a few weeks ago will spend billions of euro on the Transport 21 and National Development Plan initiatives. The companies that carry out the work will in the main rank among the CIF's 3,000 members. With the property market now under serious pressure, it is a given that Bertie Ahern, in his third incarnation as Taoiseach, will do all in his power to help maintain momentum in a sector that employs 290,000 people. So no one wants to shake the edifice.

Parlon makes sense for the CIF because as a very recent minister he will have better access than most to the people who develop policy, execute it and spend government money - although large-scale contracts are subject to the EU's public tendering process, a system designed to ensure fairness.

Like any large lobby group, the CIF has a multitude of interests. Its members may have much to say when the prickly issue of carbon tax returns to the agenda. Such a tax was opposed in strong terms by CRH, the biggest producer of building materials in Ireland. As before, the CIF will also have a seat at the next social partnership talks. Guess who'll have a deep insight into Government thinking on these matters?

Much has been said about the organisational skill that Parlon demonstrated when he was president of the Irish Farmers' Association. But any manager worth their wage can organise. Parlon will be chiefly in a diplomatic role for the CIF. He has not been appointed for an expertise in the operation of cement-mixers or structural engineering.

There's nothing wrong per se with any of that. Lobby groups are entitled to lobby - and former government ministers are entitled to work for them. Yet transparency for one should mean transparency for all. The simple fact remains that different rules apply to the unelected officials who surrounded Parlon when he was in government. Within a year of retiring, senior civil servants and local authority officials are required to seek advice from an Outside Appointments Board before accepting certain senior posts in private business.

The system is designed to avoid conflict of interest. That's as it should be, you might think. Even if there is no conflict of interest, integrity of public service should not be tainted by a perception that such a conflict exists. If it's right and proper for a public body to scrutinise the future employment of State employees, then it's appropriate to have the same rules in place for ministers and ministers of state. After all, those who have the most power should be the most accountable.

None of that is to say that Parlon is conflicted in his new role. It is clear, however, that he brings an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of government to his new job.

Then there is the matter of the CIF's legal challenge in the EU against the Government's new fixed-priced procurement contracts. Designed to arrest drastic cost overruns on public projects, the contracts were introduced last February in the face of significant opposition from the CIF and its members.

In the old system, the government was liable for any cost increases. In the new system, construction companies will have to shoulder any increases. Last month the CIF's executive body decided unanimously to make a complaint about the contracts to the European Commission. A challenge in the European Court of Justice is also on the cards.

Here is the irony. Parlon will soon be spending his members' money instructing lawyers to embark on an expensive effort to dismantle a system introduced by the government of which he was a member. It ain't pretty, but that's what happens when you change horses. Welcome to Parlon country.