SIX FORMER MINISTERIAL advisers sought to have their cooling off period waived in 2024.

The figure was revealed in the Standards in Public Office Commission’s (Sipo) annual report.

Under the Regulation of Lobbying Act (2015), anyone who communicates with a public official or politician – called designated public officials, or DPOs – about laws, policies and practices, or seeks to have them changed, must register as a lobbyist and file returns three times a year.

These returns are then listed on the publicly accessible Register of Lobbying. On these, ex-government officials who engage in lobbying, must declare that they are former DPOs as well as the most recent public position they held.

Former DPOs are subject to a mandatory one-year cooling-off period after leaving their government roles unless they seek an exemption from Sipo.

The Commission did not say how many of the six exemption requests in 2024 – all from special advisers – were granted.

Someone may be granted a waiver if they want to take up a new role and can guarantee that they won’t be involved in lobbying for the remainder of what would have been the cooling off period.

Enforcing lobbying rules

It was revelaed in December that Sipo pleaded with the government not to be in charge of proceedings where ex-ministers, special advisers or other public servants did not stick to rules around a “cooling off” period.

In correspondence with the Department of Public Expenditure, SIPO said plans to leave enforcement up to them instead of the courts were “completely unworkable.”

They warned that there was a “high litigation risk” and that offences related to cooling-off periods would be better dealt with through the court system.

The Department of Public Expenditure rejected this approach however, saying that dealing with it as a criminal matter could have a “chilling effect.”

Records showed how SIPO told the government that plans for amended legislation on the regulation of lobbying were fraught with difficulty.

They said they were already struggling with a lack of resources and adding to their work would “heighten the risk of under-resourcing, and of error, in relation to [their] portfolio as a whole.”

SIPO also argued there was little reason to keep the process outside of the legal system as each case was likely to be appealed anyway.