Standards in Public Office Commission – Annual Report 2009 Annual Report 2009 1 Standards in Public Office Commission – Annual Report 2009 Standards in Public Office Commission, 18 Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2. Tel: (01) 6395666 Fax: (01) 6395684 Email:
[email protected] Website: www.sipo.gov.ie PRN: A10/0224 ISSN: 2009-3217 Designed by: 2 Standards in Public Office Commission – Annual Report 2009 Annual Report 2009 3 Standards in Public Office Commission – Annual Report 2009 Contents Foreword 5 The Members 6 Introduction by the Chairman 7 Chapter 1 - The Work of the Standards Commission 10 Ethics Acts 10 Electoral Acts 14 Party Leaders’ Allowance Act 15 Chapter 2 - Ethics 17 Ensuring Integrity in Public Service 17 Whistleblowing 17 Inquiry Officer 20 Overlapping Ethics Frameworks 22 High Level Statement of Ethical Principles 23 Complaints 24 Killarney Town Council Investigation 24 Use of Oireachtas Facilities 25 Connected Persons 25 Scope of the Ethics Acts 27 Ethical Framework for the Local Government Service 28 Codes of Conduct 28 Disclosure of Liabilities 29 Chapter 3 - Electoral 32 Transparency of funding of political parties 32 GRECO Evaluation of transparency of political parties 35 Disclosure of Donations in respect of 2009 36 Donations disclosed by TDs, Senators and MEPs 36 Donations disclosed by individual donors 37 Donations disclosed by political parties 37 Supervision of the European Parliament election and the Dáil bye-elections 38 Accounting Unit returns for year ending 31 December 2008 39 Third Parties 40 Exchequer funding of political parties 41 Appendices 42 Appendix 1: Costs in 2009 43 Appendix 2: Publications by the Standards Commission 2009 44 Appendix 3: Glossary of terms 45 4 Appendix 4: Recommendations for change 49 Standards in Public Office Commission – Annual Report 2009 Foreword In accordance with the provisions of section 27(2)(a) of the Ethics in Public Office Act 1995, I am pleased to furnish the Annual Report of the Standards in Public Office Commission for 2009 to the Minister for Finance.