I became Chairperson of the Standards in Public Office Commission (Standards Commission) in February 2014. This report covers the activities of the Commission during my first, almost full, year in office. 2014 has been a busy year for the Standards Commission.
Elsewhere in the report the extent of the work of the Standards Commission during 2014 is set out in detail.
The extent of the responsibilities of the Standards Commission is varied. Since its establishment in December 2001, it supervises the ethics legislation, the electoral legislation and the Party Leaders Allowance legislation. Each of these areas of legislation has been amended over the years, in some cases adding to the supervision role of the Commission.
As appears in greater detail in this report, additional regulation was enacted which govern the Commission’s operations. With effect from 1 July 2014, the Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Act 2014 provides that, for the first time, independent members of the Dáil and Seanad are required to account to the Commission for their expenditure of Exchequer funding provided in the form of the Parliamentary Activities Allowance. Parliamentary leaders of qualified political parties have been required to provide such information since 2001. The first returns by independent members were provided in April 2015 in respect of the 6 month period from 1 July to 31 December 2014. In respect of 2015 and subsequent years, independent members will be required to account for the whole of the allowance received in each year. Details of funding under this legislation in 2014 are provided later in Chapter 3 of this report.
The Registration of Lobbying Bill 2014 was published in mid 2014 and was signed into law by the President in March 2015. The Commission engaged with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in the drafting of the Act during 2014 and 2015. Under the Act, the Commission is given the role of maintaining the online register of lobbying and regulating most of the provisions of the Act. Further information on the lobbying legislation is set out in Chapter 4 of this report.
I reported in the Commission’s report in 2013 that the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Act 2012 requires the Commission to prepare and publish guidelines for the purpose of providing practical guidance to political parties with respect to keeping proper books of account and preparing an annual statement of accounts. The Minister gave his consent to the publication of the guidelines and these were published in December 2014.
This report includes reports and updates on complaints which the Commission has received. Two such complaints were against former Councillors Padraig Doherty and Dessie Larkin, Donegal County Council, relating to overclaiming of travelling and subsistence allowances. The Commission, in deciding that some of the complaints relating to Councillors Doherty and Larkin were established, made a number of recommendations to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government about strengthening the procedures for claiming expenses to avoid double claiming. Further details are set out later in Chapter 2 of this report. The Commission is glad to report that its recommendations were accepted by the Minister. It is hoped that the new procedures will eliminate the possibilities of double claiming of expenses.
Finally, I want to thank my fellow members of the Standards Commission for their contributions during the year. I also want to thank the Commission Secretary, Paddy Walsh, who joined us in August 2014 and his predecessor, David Waddell, for their dedication and commitment. I would like to thank the excellent staff of the Commission Secretariat for their continued commitment and hard work during the year. The range of tasks to be performed by the Standards Commission is now so wide that it would be impossible for the Commission to discharge all of its statutory obligations in a timely and effective manner were it not for the extensive support and assistance afforded to it by the Secretariat.
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