Introduction by the Chairman
The year 2011 will mark the tenth anniversary of the enactment of the Standards in Public Office Act and the establishment of the Standards Commission. It is timely, therefore, that the Commission take a critical look at its work and its effectiveness. This is one of the tasks we have set ourselves for the coming year.
Two studies on attitudes to corruption published in November 2009 showed apparently contradictory results. While the rest of the world appeared to believe that Ireland had improved its standing on an index measuring perception of corruption, Irish people themselves apparently held a very different view. In past reports, I have stressed the importance of international perceptions of Ireland and the Standards Commission is pleased that we appear to be improving on this corruption perception index. Also of vital importance, however, is the trust of citizens in our institutions but this seems to have taken a battering in the past couple of years with examples of governance failures in both our public and private sectors.
Transparency International reported that its Corruption Perceptions Index showed that Ireland’s score had risen from 7.7 the previous year to 8 out of 10 in 2009 and that our ranking had improved from 16th place on the index to become the 14th least corrupt country in the world in a survey of 180 countries. This places Ireland on an equal footing to Germany on the index and is the highest ranking achieved by Ireland since 1998.
The second study in November 2009 was the European Commission’s Eurobarometer 72.2 survey on Attitudes of Europeans towards Corruption. In a comprehensive survey of the 27 member states, 78% of those interviewed tended to agreed with the proposition that corruption was a major problem in their individual countries. 85% of Irish people surveyed agreed with this; an increase of six percentage points on the previous survey in 2007. 87% of Irish people agreed that there was corruption in our national institutions, a worrying 12 percentage point increase on 2007. In 2007, 63% of Irish surveyed believed that the giving and taking of bribes and the abuse of power for personal gain was widespread among politicians at national level. This figure had increased to 71% in the 2009 survey.
These statistics underline the need to avoid complacency in relation to our anticorruption activities and to continue to strengthen both our legal and regulatory frameworks. A number of other very useful studies were published during the year to which we refer in this report. These include the Council of Europe GRECO report on transparency of political party funding in Ireland, an area within the purview of the Standards Commission, and the GRECO report is dealt with later in this report. Other international studies were also published - Transparency International’s National Integrity System Study and that organisation’s study “Alternative to Silence”, a report on whistleblower protection in 10 European countries, including Ireland.
As well as reporting briefly on the Standards Commission’s activities in 2009, this report focuses on a number of areas which we believe must be tackled in order to ensure integrity in our public services. These include reform of political party funding, whistleblower protection and the powers of the Standards Commission itself.
Finally, I would like to thank my fellow Commissioners for their contributions during the year. I would also like to thank the staff of our secretariat and our secretary for their work during 2009.