Former minister and regulations introducer Brendan Howlin criticises Uber lobbyist John Moran’s notion company could avoid official records by dropping note into house of then minister for finance Michael Noonan
The architect of the State’s lobbying regulations has said it was “clearly unacceptable” for a lobbyist to suggest that he could avoid official channels by contacting a government minister at home.
Mr Moran said, when planning an event to launch Uber’s Limerick service centre, that he could drop a note into Mr Noonan’s house on a Sunday “without it forming part of the official” department records, internal Uber records show. Mr Noonan told The Irish Times that Mr Moran may have made this suggestion in communications with Uber executives but that he did not carry it out.
“We put in a legal framework for legitimate lobbying, anything outside that is not allowed and it is as simple as that,” he said. “I think it would be entirely unacceptable for any public official, or ex-public official, to seek to circumvent what is a legal regime agreed to by the Oireachtas and legislated for.
Uber’s lobbying dealings are revealed in an unprecedented leak of more than 124,000 files to the Guardian newspaper in Britain and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, of which The Irish Times is the Irish media partner. “I would like to have seen prosecutions in relation to people who flouted this. The notion that you could go around it and have a chat with somebody and not register it is simply unacceptable,” he said.
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