Legislative programme for institutional reform
Issued : Monday 7 April, 2008
The Labour Party has launched the first phase of a new legislative programme for institutional reform, 'Broadening our Democracy'.
There are three elements to the programme of reform to be launched on Monday:
An Electoral Commission Bill which will establish a new Electoral and Public Offices Commission that would take over the powers of the existing Standards in Public Office Commission and the Referendum and Constituency Commission. It would also take over from local authorities, responsibility for the electoral register and from the Department of the Environment responsibility for the running of elections. The Bill also provides for major changes in the process by which the constituencies are revised.
A Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill designed to extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to a number of key bodies including the Garda Siochana and to repeal the regime of charges for access to information introduced by the Fianna Fail/PD government in 2003.
A Registration of Lobbyists Bill to provide for the registration of paid lobbyists and for the regulation of the process of lobbying.
Summary
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A SHORT GUIDE TO THE THREE BILLS
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Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2008
1. Public Bodies covered by FOI.
The definition of "public body" is amended so as to apply FOI automatically to many public bodies, rather than having to await their individual designation.
The main public body affected is the Garda Síochána. It is at present listed in the First Schedule to the Freedom of Information Act 1997 as a body to which the Act may be applied by order. But no such order has yet been made.
Other affected bodies would include the Garda Ombudsman Commission, the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the Office of the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, the Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland, the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the National Treasury Management Agency, the National Pension Reserve Fund Commission, the State Claims Agency, Vocational Educational Committees, the State Examinations Commission, the Residential Institutions Redress Board, the Central Applications Office, the Adoption Board, the Irish Red Cross, the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, and so on.
2. Statutory secrecy provisions.
Section 32 of the 1997 Act dealt with the interaction between the disclosure policy of FOI and various other laws under which disclosure of information is prohibited or non-disclosure is authorised. Essentially, section 32 says that a public body is entitled to rely on the secrecy provisions of another Act as a ground for refusing access to information unless that secrecy provision is listed in the Third Schedule. If the provision is scheduled, then the disclosure regime of the Freedom of Information Acts overrides the other Act.
This Bill inserts more than 70 additional Acts and statutory instruments into the Third Schedule of the 1997 Act, thereby restricting those secrecy provisions and conferring a primacy on the disclosure policy of the Freedom of Information Acts.
3. Fees.
A retrograde amendment was introduced by the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003, under which fees were made chargeable for applying for records under the Act, where previously fees were charged only if access was actually granted. In addition, fees are charged for applying for an internal review of a refusal to give access and for appealing a refusal to the Information Commissioner. This fees regime resulted in a marked decline in usage of the Freedom of Information Acts.
This Bill repeals the amendment and revokes the statutory instrument.
4. Miscellaneous amendments.
The Information Commissioner and her predecessor, in their statutory commentaries on the Acts, have put forward a series of proposals for the improvement of the legislation - including by deleting some of the changes made in 2003. Opportunity is taken to implement most of those miscellaneous proposals.
Registration of Lobbyists Bill 2008
The purpose of the Bill is to introduce in the public interest a system for the registration of paid lobbyists and the disclosure of their activities.
The Bill seeks to balance two legitimate but competing interests. One the one hand, open and responsible government requires that citizens should have the fullest access to those who make decisions affecting them and should be entitled to express freely their opinions on legislative and executive actions and proposed actions. On the other hand, the identity methods and expenditure of those who seek to influence legislative or executive action should be publicly known, so as to preserve and maintain the integrity of government.
The Bill applies to the lobbying of Ministers, TDs and Senators, special advisers, public bodies, the Defence Forces and the Garda Síochána.
"Lobbying" means communicating in an attempt to influence --
- the development of legislative proposals,
- the passage of Bills or resolutions in either House of the Oireachtas,
- the development or amendment of policies and programmes by public bodies, or
- the awarding of contracts, grants, contributions or other benefits by or on behalf of public bodies.
The Bill applies to both hired lobbyists and "in house" lobbying by employees. The register of lobbyists and lobbying activities will be kept by the Standards in Public Offices Commission and will be open to the public.
Electoral Commission Bill 2008
The main purpose of the Bill is to establish an independent electoral commission, with responsibility for both electoral administration and oversight.
This involves uniting functions of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Standards in Public Office Commission, the Referendum Commission and the Constituency Commission.
The Standards in Public Commission continues in being and is renamed the Electoral and Public Offices Commission. It continues to perform its present functions as well as the functions transferred to it by this Bill.
1. Constituency Review
The procedure for constituency review is changed. First, the terms of reference are amended by -
o specifying that each constituencies may return three, four, five or six members (the present maximum number is five);
o stipulating that the Commission must, as far as practicable, recommend an arrangement of constituency sizes and boundaries that is best calculated to produce an overall proportionate result, in terms of first preference votes for party candidates and the number of TDs returned for each party.
Second, the Bill requires the Commission to start its work as soon as the CSO publishes its preliminary figures (the "Preliminary Report setting out the population of the State classified by Dáil constituency") after a census, rather than waiting for the final figures. This was recommended by the High Court following a challenge to the constituencies on which the last general election was held.
Third, the work of the Commission, following consideration of the submissions made to it, will result initially in the publication of an interim report, on which submissions can be made before a final report, based on final corrected figures from the CSO is published.
3. Referendum Commission
The Bill transfers to SIPO the functions of a Referendum Commission under the Referendum Acts 1992 to 2001.
3. Functions of Minister
The Bill transfers to SIPO the functions vested in the Minister by or under -
o the Electoral Acts 1992 to 2005,
o the European Parliament Elections Acts 1992 to 2004, and
o the Local Elections Acts 1974 to 2004.
However, the power of the Minister to make statutory regulations and orders is not transferred to the Commission. Nor is the power of the Minister to appoint date as polling day.
4. Register of Electors
The Bill transfers to SIPO the functions of local authorities in relation to preparing and publishing the register of electors.
The Commission must seek to achieve the comprehensive, accurate and timely registration of persons entitled to be registered as electors, in an efficient and economical manner.
It is entitled to information from statutory bodies and utilities, so as to accurately record the names and addresses of electors.
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.
It is stipulated that this information may be used in the performance of electoral registration duties and for no other purpose.
The information may be shared with presiding officers. And documents containing or relating to a person's PPS number may be specified by the Minister as documents that a returning officer or presiding officer may require a person applying for a ballot paper to produce, in order to prove identity.
