Annual Report 2005

General Issues

Appearance by the Standards Commission before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service

During 2005 the Standards Commission was invited to address the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service. The Chairman and three other members of the Standards Commission, Ms. Emily O'Reilly, Mr. John Purcell and Mr. Liam Kavanagh appeared before the Committee on 25 May 2005. The Standards Commission welcomed this opportunity to address the Committee and to discuss the role and functions of the Standards Commission. It also availed of the opportunity to highlight some difficulties which it had encountered in its supervision of the Ethics Acts, the Electoral Acts and the Oireachtas Act 2001. Many of these issues have already been referred to earlier in this Report.

Among the issues discussed were:

• the absence of a provision in the Ethics Acts which would allow for the appointment of an Inquiry Officer in circumstances where the Standards Commission wishes to enquire into a matter which has not been the subject of a complaint to it;
• a comparison of the Corruption Perception Index which is published annually by Transparency International and an evaluation report on Ireland which was published in 2001 by GRECO (Council of Europe - Group of States Against Corruption);
• the regulation of "third parties" under the Electoral Acts;
• the issue of election spending and whether current spending limits are adequate or ought to be increased. In this context, the issue of expenditure on election materials which are used prior to the commencement of the election period and which are not subject to the spending limits or are not required to be accounted for, needs to be addressed;
• the absence of a requirement for non-party members of the Dáil and Seanad to account for expenditure of funding received under the Oireachtas Act 2001. The Oireachtas Act 2001 provides for the furnishing of Statements of Expenditure of the Allowance by the parliamentary leaders of qualified political parties only;
• the issuing of Tax Clearance Certificates to Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas;
• the position taken by the Standards Commission in relation to the provisions of section 33 of the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2004;
• observations provided by the Standards Commission on a draft Code of Conduct for Local Authority employees.

 
Re-design of the Standards Commission website

During 2005 the Standards Commission, in conjunction with the Office of the Ombudsman and the Office of the Information Commissioner, invited tenders for the re-design and re-development of its website. The contract for the re-development of all the three websites was awarded to TERMINALFOUR, a Dublin based software development company.

The new website of the Standards Commission was launched in December 2005. The site has been designed to the highest accessibility standards with the intention of making it easier to read and providing a clear structure and a simple, intuitive navigation. The website also has an improved search function and there is an Irish language version of the site.

It is envisaged that the new site will become a valuable tool for disseminating information about the Standards Commission and the legislation it supervises. It is hoped that it will be used by members of the public to access information published by the Standards Commission and by those subject to the legislation as a reference on how to comply with Ethics, Electoral and Party Leaders Allowance legislation.

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