Report to the Committee on Members' Interests of Seanad Éireann

Contravention of section 21

A Senator could contravene Section 21 of the 2001 Act in a number of ways. Examples could include the following :

• a Senator might not have provided a Tax Clearance Certificate or Application Statement to the Standards Commission within the permitted nine month period following the date of election;
• a Senator might not have provided a Statutory Declaration to the Standards Commission within the permitted nine month period following the date of the election;
• a Senator might have provided a Tax Clearance Certificate or an Application Statement to the Standards Commission within the permitted nine month period but it might have been issued by Collector-General more than nine months before the date of the election;
• a Senator might have provided a Statutory Declaration to the Standards Commission within the permitted nine month period but it might have been made outside the permitted one month period either side of the date of the election.

For the purpose of investigation by the Standards Commission, and the subsequent report to a Committee on Members' Interests, section 21 of the 2001 Act treats all contraventions equally. Additionally, the 2001 Act, for the purpose of investigation and report, does not distinguish between degrees of contravention. A contravention by a Senator who provides a Tax Clearance Certificate and a Statutory Declaration within the nine month period but whose Statutory Declaration is made one day late is, for the purpose of investigation and report, treated in the same way as a contravention by a Senator who does not submit any tax clearance documentation.

The 2001 Act provides that, in the case of any contravention by a Senator, an investigation will be carried out by the Standards Commission and a written report of the result of that investigation will be furnished to the Seanad Committee on Members' Interests which will, in turn, cause copies of the report to be laid before Seanad Éireann.

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