Some local authority professional employees are seeking legal advice and clarification on a number of issues surrounding the annual declaration of interests which comes into operation this year.
Under the Local Government Act, 2001, local authority members, as well as "relevant employees", must furnish an annual declaration of "declarable interests" .
The first deadline is at the end of February.
Forms were issued last month and these must be furnished to the Ethics Registrar.
Land owned, shareholding of over €12,697, directorships and business dealings are considered declarable interests for the public register.
Mr Tony Dunne, branch secretary of the SIPTU Local Authority Professional Officers' (LAPO) branch, which represents many of the engineers and some planners employed by local authorities, said he has had a number of queries and these are being studied by the union's legal advisers.
It seemed, Mr Dunne said, that the question of which employees should fill in the declaration of interest forms was at the discretion of managers.
This was one of the issues causing anxiety among members of LAPO, he said.
In general, people subscribed to the idea. However, the request that the interests of a connected person - a brother, sister, parent, spouse or child, or person with whom the employee is co-habiting - also had to be furnished in such declarations had "raised the hackles" of and was of great concern to members of LAPO in a number of different local authorities.
Legal advice was being sought on whether the Act allowed for this kind of query.