Report on standards `had to be scrapped'

A draft report on standards in public office legislation had to be scrapped after its authors saw similar proposals in action in Australia, the Dail Committee on Finance and the Public Service has heard.

Mr Tony Killeen TD (FF), chairman of the select group which drew up the draft and final reports, told the committee that one effect of Australia's decade-old commission against corruption was that the public had an even lower opinion of politicians.

The experience there had been that few complaints were made against politicians between elections, but in the run-up to elections there was a sudden rush.

After what it had seen, the select committee went "back to the drawing board" and produced a new report, rejecting the Taoiseach's proposal for a permanent commission.

In the report published last Monday, it proposed instead a six-member commission chaired by a judge, to be convened when necessary, after a complaint had first gone through a cross-party screening process. At least three of the commission's membership would have to be available to hear the case and additional expertise would be recruited as appropriate.

Asked by Mr Batt O'Keeffe TD (FF) to explain why the report included journalists in the overall framework in which legislative ethics should be considered, Mr Killeen said the general denigration of politicians by a small section of the media was "at a certain level a threat to the continuation of democracy".

The committee favoured the establishment of a press council, he said.