Strengthening the SIPO law to make religions accountable

smacl

Nick Park wrote: »

Such transparency could only be in very general terms (eg number of donors, average amount given, how many donors were in Ireland). An organisation disclosing anything more detailed would, I believe, get hammered for data protection breaches.

Not for any donation above €100 from what I can gather from the SIPO web-site

SIPO wrote:

A recipient of a donation may not accept:

• a donation exceeding the value of €100, if the name and address of the donor are not known;

• a cash donation exceeding the value of €200;

• a donation exceeding the value of €200 in any calendar year from a corporate donor unless the corporate donor is registered in the register of Corporate Donors maintained by the Standards Commission and a statement, on behalf of the corporate donor confirming that the making of the donation was approved by the corporate donor, is furnished with the donation to the donee;

• a donation, of whatever value, from an individual (other than an Irish citizen) who resides outside the island of Ireland;

• a donation from a body corporate or unincorporated body of persons which does not keep an office in the island of Ireland from which one or more of its principal activities is directed;

• a donation, or donations from the same donor, in any calendar year exceeding, in the case of a TD, Senator, MEP, candidate at a Dáil, Seanad or European election or Presidential candidate/election agent, an aggregate value of €1,000 or, in the case of a political party, sub-unit of a political party or a third party, an aggregate value of €2,500.

It could be that Iona gleaned €273k on the back of a large number of very small donations with no single donation over €2.5k. It could also be they've yet to have their accounts checked by SIPO seeing as they only registered in 2015 themselves.

Nick Park

smacl wrote: »

Not for any donation above €100 from what I can gather from the SIPO web-site




It could be that Iona gleaned €273k on the back of a large number of very small donations with no single donation over €2.5k. It could also be they've yet to have their accounts checked by SIPO seeing as they only registered in 2015 themselves.

No, the €100 limit simply applies to receiving anonymous donations. It has nothing to do with divulging information about donors.

Many organisations, particularly charities, keep a list of all donors. But to be 'transparent' in the sense of naming all donors, would be a breach of data protection law.

recedite

The kind of donations we are talking about here are ones collected for political purposes (lobbying or attempting to influence public policy).
Most charities would not be affected.
Even if they were, disclosing names to SIPO would not be a breach of data protection because the charity "should" have a policy to let donors of notifiable amounts know in advance that SIPO would be notified.

Nick Park

recedite wrote: »

The kind of donations we are talking about here are ones collected for political purposes (lobbying or attempting to influence public policy).

That might be what you are talking about. But I was responding to a post in which smacl wanted Iona to be "fully transparent as to where all and any donations come from".

I was pointing out that such 'transparency' would be illegal under data protection legislation.

disclosing names to SIPO would not be a breach of data protection because the charity "should" have a policy to let donors of notifiable amounts know in advance that SIPO would be notified.

I agree, but that isn't actually what we were talking about. We were talking about Iona being 'transparent' about "all and any donations".

smacl

Nick Park wrote: »

No, the €100 limit simply applies to receiving anonymous donations. It has nothing to do with divulging information about donors.

Many organisations, particularly charities, keep a list of all donors. But to be 'transparent' in the sense of naming all donors, would be a breach of data protection law.

The €200 limit per annum is a bit more interesting though. By my reading, if exceeded it requires the donor also to register with SIPO, where there details become publicly available. See SIPO register of corporate donors. Surprisingly, it contains just 38 entries at present which seems tiny when we're talking about the total number of individuals or organisations liable to contribute > €200 to a single political cause in a given year.

smacl

Nick Park wrote: »

Many organisations, particularly charities, keep a list of all donors. But to be 'transparent' in the sense of naming all donors, would be a breach of data protection law.

It doesn't seem unreasonable (to me) that any person or organisation donating towards political lobbying be obliged to make themselves known. According to SIPO rules, as per my previous post, they already do if the amount donated in any given year to any organisation exceeds €200. Given there are only 38 such listed donors on the SIPO website, and the largest total anyone of them could have ligitimately donated to a 3rd party organisation is €2500 this means that less than €95,000 in total of legitimate political donation was made last year. This seems like a ridiculously small figure which to me suggests that compliance with SIPO is currently the exception in Ireland rather than the rule.

Nick Park

smacl wrote: »

It doesn't seem unreasonable (to me) that any person or organisation donating towards political lobbying be obliged to make themselves known. According to SIPO rules, as per my previous post, they already do if the amount donated in any given year to any organisation exceeds €200. Given there are only 38 such listed donors on the SIPO website, and the largest total anyone of them could have ligitimately donated to a 3rd party organisation is €2500 this means that less than €95,000 in total of legitimate political donation was made last year. This seems like a ridiculously small figure which to me suggests that compliance with SIPO is currently the exception in Ireland rather than the rule.

I'm not quite sure why you keep quoting me when you aren't responding to my point.

I addressed your comment that Iona should be 'transparent' in disclosing "any and all donations" not just donations towards political lobbying.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

I think there's two ways you could approach this.

One is to treat fixed costs - the staff, the premises, the power bill - as not being attributable to any particular activity; they're just a foundation that needs to be constructed before any activity at all can be undertaken. On this basis the organisation's "political expenditure" is the extra money that they spend, that they wouldn't have spent if they hadn't taken on a particular political project. So, any extra printing, advertising, etc, undertaken specifically in connection with this process. Any extra staff hired to work on this project, or the staff costs of existing staff diverted to work on this project.

I think this would fall foul of SIPO's definition of what constitutes a donation, where provision of existing resources in terms of labour, premises, facilities, power etc.. would be equivalent to benefit in kind. From the notes for corporate donors on what constitutes a donation;

SIPO wrote:

viii. a notional donation/donation in kind. This means that where a person/organisation pays for work/expenses from its own resources (i.e., not party funds) then this is considered a donation of the notional value/cost of the work/expenses to the donee. Donations in kind or notional donations are to be valued at the usual commercial price charged for the purchase, use or acquisition of the property or goods the supply of any service donated. See paragraph 3.2(v).

While I appreciate the sentiment of what SIPO are trying to achieve here, it seems a bit sketchy in how you would implement it. For example, if a priest were to recommend how parishioners should vote in a referendum, the priest is engaged in a political activity and the church is donating resources towards this activity. The same could hold true for many people and many activities.

smacl

Nick Park wrote: »

I addressed your comment that Iona should be 'transparent' in disclosing "any and all donations" not just donations towards political lobbying.

My bad, I should have included 'towards political lobbying' though having had a quick scan of their news page, there's very little that could be described as apolitical on it.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I think this would fall foul of SIPO's definition of what constitutes a donation, where provision of existing resources in terms of labour, premises, facilities, power etc.. would be equivalent to benefit in kind. From the notes for corporate donors on what constitutes a donation;

Oh, sure. Expenditure-in-kind has to be accounted for as well as expenditure-in-cash. The question is not whether you count the expenditure, but whether you treat it as political expenditure.

smacl wrote: »

While I appreciate the sentiment of what SIPO are trying to achieve here, it seems a bit sketchy in how you would implement it. For example, if a priest were to recommend how parishioners should vote in a referendum, the priest is engaged in a political activity and the church is donating resources towards this activity. The same could hold true for many people and many activities.

But in that particular example the donation of resources by the church is trivial, isn't it? Suppose the priest mentions this three times in homilies the Sunday before the vote. That's 15 minutes of the priest's time. Assuming we treat priests as working a 40 hour week, that equates to about one-eight-thousandth of his annual remuneration, which I'd guess would be somewhere between three and five euros.

And even this assumes that the church knows that he has done this. If the diocese has directed him to preach in this way, obviously they know it and it represents a contribution-in-kind by them. But if he has simply taken it on himself to do this, the diocese will likely only hear about it if somebody complains about it. It's questionable whether that could be regarded as a contribution by the diocese, but it's even more questionable whether a reporting obligation that aimed to cover it would be workable in practice.

We live in a democracy where citizens are free, and indeed encouraged, to participate in public affairs, including by commenting on them, by urging particular courses of action, etc. I don't think SIPO can or should be directed at monitoring or limiting this. What it should be aimed at is the potential hijacking or corruption of public affairs by special interest groups.

Obviously there's a blurry line between (a) organised campaigns by lobby groups which aim to buy influence (bad) and (b) citizens working together to advance their views on public affairs (good). I think what SIPO should be aimed at is transparency so that we can make a judgment as to whether a particular effort is an example of (a) or (b).

I'd have to say that an organisation, whether a church or not, whose efforts centre around getting people to make public appeals for a vote this way or that pretty clearly falls into the (b) camp as far as I am concerned, and I am not at all worried by it. I do not see any great merit in attempting to put a monetary value on the time which the people concerned devote to this activity; the fact that they are engaged in the activity is already entirely public. (That's rather the point, in fact.)

Whereas an organisation that makes large donations to political parties and expects in return regular opportunities for a quiet word in the Minister's shell-like ear is very much on the (a) side of the balance. That seems to me the kind of degradation of democracy which SIPO structures should primarily be directed towards.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

But in that particular example the donation of resources by the church is trivial, isn't it? Suppose the priest mentions this three times in homilies the Sunday before the vote. That's 15 minutes of the priest's time. Assuming we treat priests as working a 40 hour week, that equates to about one-eight-thousandth of his annual remuneration, which I'd guess would be somewhere between three and five euros.

I think that's one eight-hundredth, not one eight-thousandth, that the costs of running a small church are more than the wage of priest, and that if you consider the Catholic Church in Ireland as a single organisation the amount isn't trivial. That said, thinking on it further, it was a flawed example on my part as the congregation are also members the church attending a church meeting, so it is doubtful whether it could be considered akin to lobbying the public. If the church were involved say in the publication and distribution of pro-life material to the general public for example, that would be a different matter, but I don't think this is the case for the RCC.

We live in a democracy where citizens are free, and indeed encouraged, to participate in public affairs, including by commenting on them, by urging particular courses of action, etc. I don't think SIPO can or should be directed at monitoring or limiting this. What it should be aimed at is the potential hijacking or corruption of public affairs by special interest groups.

Obviously there's a blurry line between (a) organised campaigns by lobby groups which aim to buy influence (bad) and (b) citizens working together to advance their views on public affairs (good). I think what SIPO should be aimed at is transparency so that we can make a judgment as to whether a particular effort is an example of (a) or (b).

I'd have to say that an organisation, whether a church or not, whose efforts centre around getting people to make public appeals for a vote this way or that pretty clearly falls into the (b) camp as far as I am concerned, and I am not at all worried by it. I do not see any great merit in attempting to put a monetary value on the time which the people concerned devote to this activity; the fact that they are engaged in the activity is already entirely public. (That's rather the point, in fact.)

Whereas an organisation that makes large donations to political parties and expects in return regular opportunities for a quiet word in the Minister's shell-like ear is very much on the (a) side of the balance. That seems to me the kind of degradation of democracy which SIPO structures should primarily be directed towards.

I agree entirely, but that is making a subjective interpretation on how SIPO should ideally operate as opposed to adhering strictly to the written rules it currently provides. I reckon these rules are primarily there as tools that SIPO can use to chase organisation trying to evade its control. Given SIPO has a current list of just 38 corporate donors, none of whom are allowed donate €2,500 per annum to any given organisation, I would imagine the vast majority of donations towards political lobbying, whether in cash or in kind, fall well outside of SIPO's rules. Were Amnesty become the whipping boy that SIPO use to show they've teeth, that'd be all well and good in my opinion, just so long as they similarly pursue others involved in lobbying. Given they manged to spend in excess of €300,000 uncovering a €2000 false expense claim I'm of the opinion that SIPO are yet another government quango sucking up public funds for no great public benefit.

Peregrinus

Nearly all law enforcement processes cost more than the monetary value that can be attributed to the breach of the law being enforced. If, on that basis, SIPO are "yet another government quango sucking up public funds for no great public benefit" then so are the guards, the court service, the probation service and the prisons.

I don't think this is a particularly useful way of trying to measure the public utility of SIPO.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Nearly all law enforcement processes cost more than the monetary value that can be attributed to the breach of the law being enforced. If, on that basis, SIPO are "yet another government quango sucking up public funds for no great public benefit" then so are the guards, the court service, the probation service and the prisons.

I don't think this is a particularly useful way of trying to measure the public utility of SIPO.

Were that is the case, how exactly do we measure the public utility of SIPO? While I appreciate monitoring political donations is only one part of what they do, given they have just 38 registered corporate donors giving €200 or more for political purposes they would appear to be ignored by most such donors. Unless you contend that the total amount donated by all organisations and individuals in the state towards political causes amounts to less than €95,000 and no other single donation of more that €2,500 has been made.

Spending €300,000 to track down a €2,000 expenses fiddle does to me seem to be a spectacular waste of public money at a time where there is dire need of such money elsewhere in society. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Peregrinus

Only if you assume that the only outcome of tracking down the fiddle is that the fiddle has been tracked down. If you allow also the possibility that tracking down the fiddle might deter or avoid further fiddles by the same or other people, then the calculation changes.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Only if you assume that the only outcome of tracking down the fiddle is that the fiddle has been tracked down. If you allow also the possibility that tracking down the fiddle might deter or avoid further fiddles by the same or other people, then the calculation changes.

The outcome from what I can tell is that Ó Domhnaill resigned Fianna Fáil but remains in the Seanad at our service (and expense). Thick skinned animals that our politicians are, I doubt this will have many would be fiddlers trembling in their boots.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

Given there are only 38 such listed donors on the SIPO website, and the largest total anyone of them could have ligitimately donated to a 3rd party organisation is €2500 this means that less than €95,000 in total of legitimate political donation was made last year. This seems like a ridiculously small figure which to me suggests that compliance with SIPO is currently the exception in Ireland rather than the rule.

Fair play to you for doing this calculation, but on what basis do you maintain the €95K is ridiculously small? Unless you know the total expenditure of the orgs in question, and also the total of their other income, you can't say that there is a shortfall in accountability here.

smacl wrote: »

Were Amnesty become the whipping boy that SIPO use to show they've teeth, that'd be all well and good in my opinion, just so long as they similarly pursue others involved in lobbying. Given they manged to spend in excess of €300,000 uncovering a €2000 false expense claim I'm of the opinion that SIPO are yet another government quango sucking up public funds for no great public benefit.

Its nonsense to claim Amnesty are "the whipping boy" here. They have chosen to openly flout the law, that's why they are under the spotlight. Plain and simple.

As for that FF senator, he deliberately inflated the cost of the SIPO action by demanding to have the entire process conducted as gaeilge (which was probably very lucrative for some of his buddies) You can't blame SIPO for that, nor can you blame them if the penalties imposed on the senator at the end of the process were inadequate.

Anyway the cost of enforcing standards is always much greater than the benefit from stopping any one offender. How much do you think it costs to summon an unpaid parking ticket offender to court ?
The benefit is in mainly in preventing other people from ignoring the laws in future.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

Fair play to you for doing this calculation, but on what basis do you maintain the €95K is ridiculously small? Unless you know the total expenditure of the orgs in question, and also the total of their other income, you can't say that there is a shortfall in accountability here.

That is the maximum possible amount assuming all 38 registered donors donated the maximum allowable €2,500 and all donations went exclusively to third party organisations. The donors listed also include those donating to political parties, where the maximum donation in that case is much smaller. While we don't have a breakdown available to the public, at a guess the actual figure that relates to third party organisations is a small fraction of that €95k. Given we have the likes of Iona spending €273k as a single lobbying organisation, it seems reasonable to assume the sum total spent by all such lobbying groups is a multiple of this figure. If you felt that way inclined you could check this by looking at the publicly available abbreviated balance sheets at the companies office for the organisations in question. I'd be surprised if it didn't run into the millions. Were this the case, donations registered with SIPO would amount to less than 1% of monies spent on political lobbying. So where exactly is the money coming from, if not through SIPO registered donations?

Edit: As for the FF expense fiddler, it seems like an awful shame that SIPO didn't pursue costs once he decided to take them to the high court.

recedite

smacl wrote: »

Were this the case, donations registered with SIPO would amount to less than 1% of monies spent on political lobbying. So where exactly is the money coming from, if not through SIPO registered donations?

The assumption is "from multiple small donations".
If it turned out that Iona has hidden backers, being the RCC or it's direct affiliates who were making large undisclosed donations, then that would put them in a similar position to Equality Ireland with the Humanist Association €10K, or to Amnesty with the George Soros €137K.
So yes, as a limited company, Lolek should make certain financial info available, and if that is suspicious then anyone can make a complaint to SIPO.

smacl

recedite wrote: »

The assumption is "from multiple small donations".
If it turned out that Iona has hidden backers, being the RCC or it's direct affiliates who were making large undisclosed donations, then that would put them in a similar position to Equality Ireland with the Humanist Association €10K, or to Amnesty with the George Soros €137K.
So yes, as a limited company, Lolek should make certain financial info available, and if that is suspicious then anyone can make a complaint to SIPO.

Multiple small backers, none of whom contribute more than €200 in any given calendar year? Of course it is possible, but we can't tell either way. Lolek is under no obligation to make any information available to the public beyond an abbreviated balance sheet and they choose not to. As such, it would be up to SIPO to proactively investigate, as neither you nor I have grounds for a complaint beyond simple suspicions. I wonder whether SIPO have either the ability, the budget or the appetite for this, given the extraordinary resources they've consumed on a 2k expenses fiddle.

Nick Park

smacl wrote: »

Multiple small backers, none of whom contribute more than €200 in any given calendar year?

No, simply a lack of backers who gave in excess of €200 in any given calendar year for the express purpose of supporting political activity.

I wonder whether SIPO have either the ability, the budget or the appetite for this, given the extraordinary resources they've consumed on a 2k expenses fiddle.

I believe they expected costs to be awarded, so would not be out of pocket to the extent you suggest.

Nick Park

smacl wrote: »

Edit: As for the FF expense fiddler, it seems like an awful shame that SIPO didn't pursue costs once he decided to take them to the high court.

From your own link

Mr Ó Domhnaill took cases in the High Court and the Court of Appeal seeking to prevent Sipo investigating the duplication of expenses. He lost both cases.
A Sipo spokesman said the body had won its claim for costs so the majority of the monies would be returned to the exchequer.

smacl

Nick Park wrote: »

No, simply a lack of backers who gave in excess of €200 in any given calendar year for the express purpose of supporting political activity.

So if you have an organisation such as Iona, the bulk of whose activities are political, you think it is reasonable to donate money in excess of €200 to them if you do not expressly state that it is for the purpose of supporting political activity? For example, if I look at Iona's news page today, eight of first the ten stories are political in nature. Where non-political activity is the exception, surely we should assume that all donations are for political activity unless otherwise stated by the donor.

Peregrinus

I think Michael's point in opening this thread is that what currently determines the disclosure obligation is not what the money is ultimately spent on by the organisation, but the purpose identified by the donor when the money is given. If the donor doesn't specify that the money is for a purpose identified as "political" by the regulations (and, note, what you consider to be political and what the regulations identify as political may not be the same thing) then the donation need not be disclosed.

recedite

I would agree that for Iona, the intent of donations given should be assumed to be political lobbying.

For Amnesty, my understanding is that O'Gorman tried to say that the donations were for human rights work, but SIPO contacted the donor who confirmed that the intent of the donation was to help with the Repeal the 8th campaign, which is a matter of public policy and therefore political.

Supposing the RCC or some foreign donor was the main and secret financial backer of Iona, then they would have to disclose that.

On the other hand, a religion has the special privilege of being considered "a charitable purpose" in itself, and a religion is free to engage in political lobbying. So if the RCC was using Iona as the vehicle for its lobbying, it would only be a minor inconvenience to them if they had to stop donating the money. They could simply spend the money directly instead, which would be exempt from any requirement to disclose to SIPO. Because if the money was drawn from general funds, it would have been "donated to charity" originally, and not with any political lobbying intent.
It would be a major blow to Iona finances though. Of course, we are only in the realm of speculation here.

Nick Park

smacl wrote: »

So if you have an organisation such as Iona, the bulk of whose activities are political, you think it is reasonable to donate money in excess of €200 to them if you do not expressly state that it is for the purpose of supporting political activity? For example, if I look at Iona's news page today, eight of first the ten stories are political in nature. Where non-political activity is the exception, surely we should assume that all donations are for political activity unless otherwise stated by the donor.

You can certainly advocate for such changes in the law. But, as the law stands, there would appear to be no basis for accusing Iona of doing anything illegal or unethical.

Bear in mind, of course, that counting stories from a web site's news page is hardly a good basis for determining what percentage of their resources are devoted to political activity (as defined by SIPO).

Btw, I can't be bothered trawling through SIPO's fine print. But I'm assuming that SIPO's restriction only refer to political activity within Ireland, not overseas. Is that correct? If so, then the Human Rights activism that we all used to admire Amnesty International so much for (helping political prisoners and victims of torture etc) would not be covered by SIPO legislation. In the past, of course, this once accounted for a majority of AI's resources (especially since Amnesty had a rule that prohibited each national branch from involving themselves in political issues in their home country).

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

I would agree that for Iona, the intent of donations given should be assumed to be political lobbying.

Nick Park wrote: »

You can certainly advocate for such changes in the law. But, as the law stands, there would appear to be no basis for accusing Iona of doing anything illegal or unethical.

Bear in mind, of course, that counting stories from a web site's news page is hardly a good basis for determining what percentage of their resources are devoted to political activity (as defined by SIPO).

Btw, I can't be bothered trawling through SIPO's fine print. But I'm assuming that SIPO's restriction only refer to political activity within Ireland, not overseas. Is that correct?

It’s much more limited than that.

For SIPO purposes, “political purposes” basically means:

- Party politics: promoting or opposing a political party or a politician; promoting or advancing the policies of a party; presenting the policies or position of a party or a politician;

- Electoral politics: promoting or opposing a candidate in an election, or an outcome in a referendum, or otherwise seeking to influence the outcome of an election/referendum;

- Private interest lobbying: promoting or opposing the interests of a third party in a campaign aiming to secure an outcome in public policy or official functions.

Simply advocating for particular public policy positions is not, in itself, “political purposes” as far as SIPO is concerned. This means that much of what Iona does is not “political purposes”. Relevantly, much of what regular boardies do in this forum and many other Boards.ie forums is also not “political purposes”, and this probably explains why “political purposes” is narrowly defined. If all devotion of time or resources to any advocacy of any public policy position counted as “political purposes” practically every second pub argument in the country would be caught.

recedite wrote: »

On the other hand, a religion has the special privilege of being considered "a charitable purpose" in itself, and a religion is free to engage in political lobbying. So if the RCC was using Iona as the vehicle for its lobbying, it would only be a minor inconvenience to them if they had to stop donating the money. They could simply spend the money directly instead, which would be exempt from any requirement to disclose to SIPO. Because if the money was drawn from general funds, it would have been "donated to charity" originally, and not with any political lobbying intent.
It would be a major blow to Iona finances though. Of course, we are only in the realm of speculation here.

And fairly wild speculation too; this analysis only make sense if we assume Iona is largely funded by the institutional Catholic church, which I think is unlikely to be the case. I imagine its donations mainly come from individual Catholics in Ireland and overseas, and possibly from similar Catholic think tanks/lobby groups/whatever you want to call them from overseas.

Plus, the analysis also seems to assume that the institutional church, as a charity, would be exempt from SIPO regulation, but this is not correct. There is no SIPO carve-out for charities. Recall that Iona is itself a registered charity, and yet is covered by the SIPO legislation.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

It’s much more limited than that.

For SIPO purposes, “political purposes” basically means:

- Party politics: promoting or opposing a political party or a politician; promoting or advancing the policies of a party; presenting the policies or position of a party or a politician;

- Electoral politics: promoting or opposing a candidate in an election, or an outcome in a referendum, or otherwise seeking to influence the outcome of an election/referendum;

- Private interest lobbying: promoting or opposing the interests of a third party in a campaign aiming to secure an outcome in public policy or official functions.

I don't agree. My reading would be that it is broader than that, notably point 6 of the full definition below which operates as something of a catch-all. The other points also use the phrases 'to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly' and to 'present, directly or indirectly' which are similarly broad.

SIPO wrote:

Political purposes means any of the following purposes, namely:

1. to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly, the interests of a political party, a political group, a member of either House of the Oireachtas or a representative in the European Parliament, or

2. to present, directly or indirectly, the policies or a particular policy of a political party, a political group, a member of either House of the Oireachtas, a representative in the European Parliament or a third party, or

3. to present, directly or indirectly, the comments of a political party, a political group, a member of either House of the Oireachtas, a representative in the European Parliament or a third party with regard to the policy or policies of another political party, political group, member of either House of the Oireachtas, representative in the European Parliament, third party or candidate at an election or referendum or otherwise, or

4. to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly, the interests of a third party in connection with the conduct or management of any campaign conducted with a view to promoting or procuring a particular outcome in relation to a policy or policies or functions of the Government or any public authority;

5. to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly, the election of a candidate at a Dáil, Seanad, Presidential or European election or to solicit votes for or against a candidate or to present the policies or a particular policy of a candidate or the views of a candidate on any matter connected with the election or the comments of a candidate with regard to the policy or policies of a political party or a political group or of another candidate at the election or otherwise;

6. otherwise to seek to influence the outcome of the election or a referendum or a campaign.

By my reading this amounts to any attempt to influence the output any election, referendum or campaign either directly or indirectly, which I certainly wouldn't consider a narrow definition.

recedite

Peregrinus wrote: »

Plus, the analysis also seems to assume that the institutional church, as a charity, would be exempt from SIPO regulation, but this is not correct. There is no SIPO carve-out for charities. Recall that Iona is itself a registered charity, and yet is covered by the SIPO legislation.

What I meant is that if "the church" did it's lobbying directly, it would not have to disclose donations to SIPO because they would be hidden in among the vastness of other donations which had no particular purpose other than "to help the church".
It is highly unlikely that somebody would donate money to a church while saying "this money is only to be used for a political purpose", but I agree if that happened then that donation would have to be declared to SIPO (but only if over the limit).

Iona/Lolek is in a different position because AFAIK it is not listed as "a religious body". I'm assuming then they would be in a similar position to Equality Ireland, ie a group whose main raison d'etre is to influence public policy.

I'm open to correction here, but I don't think SIPO needed to contact the Humanist Association to check up on the "intent" of their €10K donation for this reason. Can anybody confirm that?

I wonder then would it be possible for some member of the public to make a complaint to SIPO that the amount of donations notified by Iona/Lolek was "implausible" when compared to their known expenditure?

Perhaps the best agent for making the complaint would be Atheist Ireland, in the interests of balance, if they have already queried donations to both Amnesty and Equality Ireland?

I think Number 4 is also a very wide ranging definition of "political purposes" because it could occur outside of any actual referendum/election campaign period. Most likely this is the one that Amnesty got caught out on (as they tried unsuccessfully to argue that the Repeal campaign had not started yet)....

SIPO wrote:

4. to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly, the interests of a third party in connection with the conduct or management of any campaign conducted with a view to promoting or procuring a particular outcome in relation to a policy or policies or functions of the Government or any public authority;

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I don't agree. My reading would be that it is broader than that, notably point 6 of the full definition below which operates as something of a catch-all. The other points also use the phrases 'to promote or oppose, directly or indirectly' and to 'present, directly or indirectly' which are similarly broad.

By my reading this amounts to any attempt to influence the output any election, referendum or campaign either directly or indirectly, which I certainly wouldn't consider a narrow definition.

I don't think that point 6 is as broad as all that. In order for you to be trying to influence the outcome of an election or a referendum or a campaign, there has to be an election/referendum/campaign whose outcome can be influenced.

You could argue that if I urge the government to adopt X policy or X position in relation to, say, Brexit, that is in itself a campaign, and I am seeking to influence the outcome of my own campaign. But I think that leads to the absurd situation in which every comment on any matter of public policy becomes "political purposes". So I think, no, you have to be able to point to an already existing campaign that is not an election or a referendum but is meaningfully analogous to or connected with one, and the attempt to influence the outcome of that campaign will be "political purposes".

I don't think "political purposes" is intended to be so broad as to catch people who are simply commenting on public policy, or advocating for particular public policy positions. As already mentioned , I think engagement with public affairs is a good and desirable thing in a democracy. And, without having thought too deeply about it, I dare say there'd be constitutional issues with attempts to regulate and control it excessively.

I'd be quite comfortable with a rule that said that the finances of any organisation whose purpose, or one of whose primary purposes, was advocacy or lobbying in relation to public policy must be completely transparent. But that's not what the law currently provides, and I see no evidence at all for suspecting that Iona is evading the current law.

Peregrinus

recedite wrote: »

What I meant is that if "the church" did it's lobbying directly, it would not have to disclose donations to SIPO because they would be hidden in among the vastness of other donations which had no particular purpose other than "to help the church".
It is highly unlikely that somebody would donate money to a church while saying "this money is only to be used for a political purpose", but I agree if that happened then that donation would have to be declared to SIPO (but only if over the limit).

Iona/Lolek is in a different position because AFAIK it is not listed as "a religious body". I'm assuming then they would be in a similar position to Equality Ireland, ie a group whose main raison d'etre is to influence public policy. . .

I'm not sure where you're coming from with this. SFAIK the SIPO regime makes no distinction at all between a body which is "listed as a religious body" and one which is not so listed. (Listed with whom, by the way?) And, if there were any advantage to be had by listing as a religious body, I imagine Iona could access that directly; their stated primary objective is "promoting the place of marriage and religion in society".