The Government opposed a Labour Bill to regulate the carrying out of paid political lobbying. Initiating the Second Stage debate on the Bill, Mr Pat Gallagher, Labour Environment spokesman, said he believed the public had a right to know who was lobbying the Government, Oireachtas members and public servants to change our laws and whom they had employed to assist them. "Put simply, this legislation would require paid lobbyists, who for payment or reward lobby politicians or senior public servants, to register their activity with the Public Offices Commission where it will be open to inspection by the public".
Responding on behalf of the Government, Minister of State at the Department of Health Mr Tom Moffatt said the Government had no difficulty in accepting the broad principles underlying the Bill or the spirit in which it was put forward. "However, the Bill, which seems to borrow heavily from abroad, and is apparently based on arrangements overseas, is not the solution at this time." There had not been sufficient research and consideration of the issue of lobbying in this State, he said.
Mr Maurice Manning, Fine Gael Leader in the House, said he was greatly concerned that at present a person could retire from a senior position in the public service and the very next morning find himself sitting as a major lobbyist and dealing with the kinds of issues he had been dealing with from within the service up to a few days previously. Such a person might have had his exit planned. "I think it is absolutely wrong that somebody walks out of the public service with a great deal of classified, sensitive information and can set up that very day as a lobbyist dealing with the people he was in charge of a few weeks earlier, using information that others were not privy to, which he can effectively put on sale to the highest bidder."