Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 10 Nov 2009

Vol. 694 No. 1

Legislative Programme.

Deputy Joe Costello

I firmly believe we need legislation to ensure that professional and corporate lobbyists are obliged to be registered, and that the lobbying industry would be regulated. We saw the extraordinary scenario in the not too distant past in the Flood and Mahon tribunal that showed how a lobbyist extraordinaire, Frank Dunlop, virtually corrupted an entire planning process in the capital city of this country. Public representatives were bribed, as were council officials. In the Moriarty tribunal we saw how large portions of money were given to individuals, particularly to political representatives, for nefarious purposes and that undermined the democratic process.

We have a responsibility to ensure our house is in order and that the entire political establishment is above reproach. One way to do this is by having appropriate legislation in place so that anybody engaged in lobbying public representatives for planning, ministerial decisions or any other activity must be properly registered and their activities regulated.

That is not the case at present. There is no regulation or register of lobbyists in this country and anybody can operate with impunity in the area. The Labour Party tried to address the issue in 1999 when we introduced a Registration of Lobbyists Bill in the Seanad. It was a colleague of ours, Pat Gallagher, who was then a Senator and had earlier been a Deputy, who introduced the first piece of legislation. When that was rejected we tried again in 2003, 2005 and 2008. On all occasions, Fianna Fáil-led Governments rejected the attempt to put the registration and regulation of lobbyists on a statutory footing.

The first programme for Government of the present coalition, which was agreed by the Green Party and Fianna Fáil two and a half years ago, included a provision to give a statutory basis to the regulation of lobbyists. Nothing has happened over the last two and a half years, however. The most recent version of the programme for Government, which was signed by Fianna Fáil and the Green Party a couple of weeks ago, contains the bare statement that "we will introduce a Register of Lobbyists, including professional, corporate and NGO". If it is lucky, the Government will have two and a half years to deliver on that promise. That is the maximum period it will have. It will test the mettle of the Green Party, which loudly proclaimed when it was in Opposition that it intended to provide for an ethical basis for politics across the board. It now has an opportunity to do so.

I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, to clearly state whether legislation is being prepared at present. Two and a half years have gone by without an inkling of any legislation. A fresh commitment has been made. I would welcome a commitment to introduce legislation at an early stage so that it can be debated properly. If we are to ensure that the profession of politics is strengthened, we need to put in place a statutory basis which ensures that those who might engage in lobbying, for one reason or another, have to abide by proper regulations and sign up to a register of lobbyists.

Deputy Áine Brady

I will respond to this matter on behalf of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley. I thank Deputy Costello for raising this issue. Ireland has built up a wide range of instruments, aimed at improving transparency and ethical behaviour in public life, over recent years. I refer to the Freedom of Information Acts, the ethics legislation and the various codes of conduct, for example.

Lobbying is a legal and necessary element of the dynamics of a democracy. The development of policy should respond to influence and to the views of those affected by it. It is important that such influence is open and transparent. The renewed programme for Government contains a commitment to the introduction of a register of lobbyists, including professional, corporate and non-governmental organisations. The challenge is to ensure that a register suits our circumstances. In the normal course of events, lobbying and the making of representations are healthy and welcome activities. Citizens, interest groups and businesses engage in lobbying to communicate their legitimate preferences to decision-makers. A variety of consultative mechanisms have been put in place, by means of legislation and practice, to provide for comprehensive inputs to policy development and implementation to be made. The work of lobbyists must be seen in this wider context. The Government and the Civil Service do not have all the answers. We need to be informed by outside views from industry, environmental non-governmental organisations and private citizens. It is natural that, from time to time, concerns will be raised as to whether undue influence is being brought to bear.

Many democracies have introduced systems to register professional lobbyists. Some countries, such as the United States, have complex and long-standing systems of regulation and oversight. Other jurisdictions rely on voluntary systems of regulation. A limited number of public relations companies in Ireland carry out lobbying work on a fee basis. I estimate that fewer than 30 public relations companies carry out an element of lobbying as a subset of their other public relations activities. Certain non-governmental organisations, former parliamentarians and political advisers and legal firms are also involved in lobbying on behalf of their clients. Ireland has a particularly open political system. Deputies and Ministers meet individuals and interest groups frequently during their day-to-day business and at their constituency clinics. We have operated a wide form of social partnership across the public sector. Our system lends itself to easy and free access to decision makers. While that is a good thing, it brings about a challenge in terms of regulation. An OECD report, Building a Legislative Framework for Enhancing Transparency and Accountability in Lobbying, recognises that a country's lobbying practices are deeply embedded in its democratic and constitutional setting.

The Government's policy challenge is to provide for effective regulation that is appropriate to Ireland's national circumstances and designed to capture our open system, without putting an unnecessary administrative drain on public resources. In considering such a system, the principles of regulatory impact assessment suggest that regulation must be necessary, effective, consistent and proportional. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is considering these issues on behalf of the Government, in line with the commitment in the renewed programme for Government. He intends that his Department will constructively explore options with representatives of the lobbying industry to make progress with the most appropriate approach to the introduction of a register.

School Accommodation.

Deputy Tom Sheahan

I welcome the common sense approach that was adopted by the Minister for Education and Science in his recent press release on prefabricated classrooms. The construction of permanent classrooms makes sense in terms of immediate and long-term planning. The Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, said in the press release, which was issued on 19 October last, that he has "allowed schools to use grant aid for the purchase of prefabs to build permanent classrooms and if a prefab is needed for more than three years the department will offer a school a grant to buy it rather than to rent it". St. Oliver's national school in Ballycasheen, Killarney, is paying an annual fee of €81,000 to rent prefabricated classrooms. It has embarked on a programme of building permanent classrooms and will shortly complete a permanent extension. However, it continues to have to accommodate over 100 pupils in prefabricated units, which have been on site since the 2006-07 school year, at an annual rental cost of €81,000. As the enrolment of the school has grown from 410 in 2001 to 672 at present, the classroom space provided by the prefabs will continue to be required into the future.

The management of St. Oliver's national school would like to know how it can apply for additional funding to buy the prefabricated units, rather than having to continue spending €81,000 per annum to rent them. It would welcome the provision of further funds to enable the school to purchase the units, or build further permanent classrooms, and thereby cease paying rent. The construction of further permanent classrooms would represent a longer-term accommodation solution and stimulate employment in the local economy. Given that astronomical amounts of money are being wasted on prefabs in County Kerry and elsewhere in the country, I compliment the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe on his common sense and worthwhile endeavours in this regard. The Minister has chosen the right time to harness the changes in development and construction costs. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, to state whether funding will be made available to St. Oliver's national school to enable it to buy the prefabs it is currently renting at a cost of €81,000 per annum. Perhaps she can clarify how the school authorities should go about acquiring them.

Deputy Áine Brady

I propose to respond to this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe. I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and giving me an opportunity to outline to the Dáil the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects and the current position in respect of St. Oliver's national school in Ballycasheen, Killarney. The modernisation of facilities in our existing building stock, like the need to respond to emerging needs in areas of rapid population growth, is a significant challenge. The Government has shown a consistent determination to improve the condition of our school buildings and to ensure appropriate facilities are in place to enable the implementation of a broad and balanced curriculum. As part of this process, each project is assigned a band rating under the published prioritisation criteria for large scale building projects, which were devised following consultation with the education partners. In the case of St. Oliver's national school in Ballycasheen, the school has a current staffing level of a principal, 23 mainstream teachers, one developing post, four special class teachers, one post for administration-deputy principal, three resource teachers for Travellers and five language support teachers. It also has the services of ten learning support-resource teachers.

In April 2005 the school submitted an application to the Department for capital funding towards the provision of an extension to include three classrooms for children with mild learning difficulties, a principal's office, refurbishment of the staff room area and five partitioned rooms. The application was assessed and the project was assigned a band rating of 1.2. As it was not possible to progress the project in time to meet the need presenting, it was necessary to provide temporary accommodation to the school. As the Deputy may be aware, it is open to school authorities to apply for temporary accommodation to meet any immediate accommodation needs that might arise. All applications for such additional accommodation are subject to a full and thorough assessment process. As part of that assessment process, the rental of a prefabricated classroom, the purchase of a prefabricated classroom and the building of a permanent structure are all considered as possible solutions in addressing a school's accommodation issues.

In the case of existing temporary accommodation a similar exercise would be carried out where the rental agreements are due to expire or be renewed. The purchase of a prefabricated classroom and the building of a permanent structure, in particular, may address a school's accommodation issues in the medium to long term and can be facilitated by means of a devolved grant. In an effort to limit the increasing number of prefab units being rented by schools, in July 2008 the Minister decided that where additional accommodation was needed by schools and the need was for three or more years, schools should have the option of purchasing prefab units or building new rooms.

I am pleased to say that in 2008 St. Oliver's received approval for devolved grants relating to two separate projects to purchase or build an 80 sq. m mainstream classroom, a 100 sq. m mainstream classroom and a 50 sq. m resource room. I understand from the school that one of these projects is completed, and the other is under construction and should be completed shortly.

The school is also renting prefabricated units pending provision of permanent accommodation. Regarding balance of the accommodation to be provided at St. Oliver's national school, the progression of all large-scale building projects, including this project, from initial design stage through to construction is dependent on the prioritisation of competing demands on the funding available under the Department's capital budget. The project for St. Oliver's national school will continue to be considered in the context of the Department's multi-annual school building and modernisation programme.

I again thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to outline to the Dáil the current position regarding the school building project for St. Oliver's national school, Ballycasheen, Killarney, County Kerry.

Schools Building Projects.

Deputy Seymour Crawford

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this matter. I welcome that the Minister of State spoke about devolved grants which are extremely important for many of the smaller schools.

Monaghan Model school is one of a small number of Model schools throughout the country which was in place at the foundation of the State. The school is a listed building and is therefore of great importance architecturally in Monaghan town. However, the most important fact is that the last major improvements and repairs were carried out to this school in 1984. Since then some smaller Protestant schools were closed and amalgamated with the Model school so pupil numbers increased. In 1990 an application was made for the provision of a general purpose room. In 1992 architects from the Department of Education visited and assessed the existing structure and made proposals to the Department which was to appoint specialist architects to make further assessments. This assessment team was not appointed until the summer of 2001 when it met the then chairperson and principal of the school. The architects again visited the school in November 2001 and by December 2002 the building project was agreed and was placed at architectural stage, which is stage 2. It was May 2008 before stage 3 plans were approved and as yet in spite of numerous requests no more commitments have been made by the Department or the Minister.

There are 136 pupils of ten different nationalities on the roll. There are five mainstream teachers plus a learning support teacher, a language support teacher and a resource teacher. There are five mainstream classrooms and the Minister of State would need to see these to understand how limited the space is. The other room is divided to create learning support and language support. The room — corridor really — linking the office to the main school is divided to create a resource teaching area. There is one staff room which serves as a general office, teacher resource library, store room for art materials, PE room for junior classes on a wet day and meeting room for the parents association and board of management. The office is shared by a secretary and principal, and is used for medical visits and for meeting individual parents and so on. There is no kitchen as there is nowhere to fit one and the corridors are used for storage.

This is totally unacceptable. The project is ready to go and all the board of management needs is the funding to take the project forward. The school enrolment is still increasing but the principal must now refuse to take extra names because resources are really getting to breaking point. Physical space is simply not available and there are serious health and safety issues. In the current financial situation, I understand how difficult it is to commit money to projects. However, as this is a listed building there will be a great deal of employment involved to do the job properly and I humbly suggest it would be better value for money to pay people to restructure this school for the future education of our young people than to pay people for doing nothing on social welfare. This would give much-needed employment to a very depressed industry and the Department of Education and Science should be able to get much better value for money now than if this project had been started three years ago.

This school in spite of the limitations of the building structure has an exceptionally high record in the delivery of high-quality education and there is always demand for places in it as can be illustrated by the fact that it caters for ten different nationalities. This in turn creates special needs in the context of language support and so on.

The chairperson, board and principal of this school are extremely frustrated to see and hear of so many other schools being dealt with and it is hard to explain to them why their project has not been dealt with. The school can hardly be accused of jumping the queue when its last works were completed in the 1984 and this application was made in 1990. Whenever the work is carried out, pupils and teachers will have to move the school, in every sense of the word, to alternative accommodation. It was the board's understanding that it was to receive the funds two years ago and to that end it made an agreement with Monaghan Harps GAA club to provide a site to accommodate alternative structures. This opportunity may not be there for ever and other accommodation may be difficult to find. This is a health and safety issue. There is extreme disappointment with the chairperson, board and principal of the school that their project has been left out and I urge the Minister to deal with this situation immediately.

The board received a holding letter which effectively asked it to do nothing further about the project otherwise funds would not be found for it. I could say much more if I had time. It is an urgent issue. I appreciate the Minister of State is not directly in charge of this area. However, I know her influence with the Minister, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, and I hope she will use that.

Deputy Áine Brady

I am taking this Adjournment matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe. I thank the Deputy for raising the matter as it provides me with the opportunity to outline to the Dáil the Government's strategy for capital investment in education projects as well as the current position in regard to the school referred to by Deputy Crawford, namely, the Model school in Monaghan town.

Modernising facilities in the Department's existing building stock as well as the need to respond to emerging needs in areas of rapid population growth are significant challenges. The Government has shown a consistent determination to improve the condition of school buildings and to ensure appropriate facilities are in place to enable the implementation of a broad and balanced curriculum. The Department's forward planning section has carried out a study of the country to identify the areas where, due to demographic changes, there may be a requirement for significant additional school provision at primary and post-primary levels in the coming years. This study has been conducted using data from the Central Statistics Office, the General Register Office and the Department of Social and Family Affairs, in addition to recent schools' enrolment data. The study indicates that the requirement for additional primary provision in 2010, 2011 and 2012 is likely to be greatest in 42 selected locations throughout the State, based on significant changes to the demographic profile of those areas. Monaghan town is not one of these areas.

The forward planning section is currently in the process of carrying out an analysis of each of these locations to identify the school accommodation requirements up to and including the school year 2014-15. When the required reports have been completed for these initial selected areas, the section will continue to work on preparing reports on a priority basis for the remainder of the country, which will include the Monaghan area. The school referred to by Deputy Crawford currently has a project in architectural planning to extend and refurbish the existing school. The refurbishment project has been assigned a band 2.6 rating. It is at an advanced stage of architectural planning and a stage 2(a) submission was approved by the Department in March of this year. In issuing that approval, the Department also confirmed approval for an increased floor area for the proposed extension.

The level of demand on the school building programme is such that all projects cannot be carried out together but must be carried out over time in a structured and coherent manner. That is the reasoning behind the Department's published prioritisation criteria. The progression of all large-scale building projects, including the project for the Model school in Monaghan town, is dependent on prioritisation of the competing demands on the Department's capital budget. The building project for Monaghan's Model school will be considered in the context of the Department's multi-annual school building and modernisation programme for 2010 and subsequent years. However, in light of current competing demands on the capital budget of the Department, it is not possible to give an indicative timeframe for the delivery of the project at this time.

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter and assure him that the Minister is committed to advancing the project when resources permit.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.05 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 11 November 2009.