ETHICS LEGISLATION SHOULD BE INTRODUCED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE - KENNY

Posted on November 21, 2014 4:47 PM   |   Permanent Link   

Sean Kenny, the Dublin Bay North Labour TD, and member of the Oireachtas Committee on Justice has said that while Irish parliamentarians have introduced significant parliamentary reforms around ethics, more needs to be done.

"A report called 'Corruption Prevention in Respect of Members of Parliament, Judges and Prosecutors', published by the Council of Europe's Group of States against Corruption (Greco) group has praised the transparency of Ireland's parliamentary system. It also says that the system governing the conduct of parliamentarians is too complex in that it bases its rules on a variety of sources including the Constitution, legislation and various codes of conduct."

"I would point out that this government has introduced protected disclosures legislation, freedom of information legislation, as well as lobbying regulation and will be introducing reforms of ethics legislation as well. I called for all of this during a debate on the Mahon Tribunal in 2012. As I think everyone knows, the events catalogued by that Tribunal are a litany of extremely serious offences by parliamentarians in terms of lobbying, underhanded behaviour and outright corruption, a lot of which I saw personally."

"I strongly welcomed the Lobbying Bill earlier this year as it marked an important step in the process of helping to rebuild public trust in the political system by throwing light on its interaction with those who seek to shape and influence policy across all sections of society."

"The report advises the replacing of the existing ethics framework, and I note that the report has welcomed the ongoing work to overhaul and reform the current ethical framework and standards that govern us as parliamentarians. I understand proposals for legislating on this extremely important are being brought to Government shortly."

"I think this work needs to be progressed and completed as soon as possible. I have always believed that Irish parliamentarians need to be made to conform to the highest possible standards, and need to be seen to conform to those high standards, and I think that doing this will help to restore the very jaundiced view that exists of Irish politics and politicians."