THREE BILLS have been published by the Labour Party as part of a wide-ranging programme, entitled Broadening Our Democracy, aimed at reforming political and administrative institutions.
The proposed legislation - the Electoral Commission Bill, the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill and the Registration of Lobbyists Bill - was outlined at a news conference yesterday.
Labour spokesman on local government Ciarán Lynch TD said the Electoral Commission Bill would set up a new electoral and public offices commission to take over the powers of the existing Standards in Public Office Commission and the referendum and constituency commissions.
The new body would also take over responsibility from local authorities for the electoral register, and responsibility for the running of elections from the Department of the Environment, he said.
In redrawing Dáil constituencies, the commission would be able to recommend that constituencies could return three, four, five or six members. The present maximum number is five.
Also on the issue of electoral reform, Mr Lynch said: "There are approximately 120,000 people in the country on the register of electors in excess of those that are actually registered by the CSO offices through the Census."
The Bill allows for the use of people's public service identity in order to establish their true name and address. Public service identity consists of a person's PPS number, together with his or her name (including previous names), date and place of birth, sex, address and nationality.
Labour deputy leader and finance spokeswoman Joan Burton TD said the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was designed to extend the remit of the Freedom of Information Act to a number of key bodies, including the Garda Síochána, and to repeal the regime of fees for access to information introduced by the Fianna Fáil/PD government in 2003.
The Garda is at present listed in the first schedule to the Freedom of Information Act 1997 as a body to which the Act can be applied by order. However, no such order has yet been made.
The existing Freedom of Information Act provides that a public body can rely on the secrecy provisions of another Act as a ground for refusal of access to a record. The Labour Bill proposes restricting the operation of such secrecy provisions.
The party's spokesman on constitutional matters and law reform, Brendan Howlin, described the Registration of Lobbyists Bill as "a measure that would provide in the public interest for the disclosure and registration of paid lobbyists who seek to influence public policy either at local or national level".
He said the proposed legislation would "debar a TD or senator from actually holding a paid lobbying position".
It would also prohibit certain categories of people, ie members of State boards or ministerial special advisers, from becoming paid lobbyists on areas in which they were directly involved for two years after leaving office. He said these Bills, if given the force of law, "would greatly advance the transparent working of government, at national and local level".
Later this year, Labour would continue its reform programme and the party was already preparing several Bills including: full-scale reform of ethics legislation; protection of "whistleblowers"; reform of the official secrets legislation and further reform of electoral spending laws, he said.
