The Kettle's Boyled: Do lobbyists have too much influence?

I don’t have a problem with lobbyists. I’d be a hypocrite if I did. I spent several decades lobbying at EU level for the rights of persons with disabilities, and I have also lobbied for rural development in the tourism and leisure sector. Lobbying is a necessary part of the process of informing decision-makers of the detail of grass-roots issues, and can help inform important legislative changes.

All that assumes that legislators are able to filter out lobbying by vested interests, to ensure that the common good is at the forefront of their decision-making. Although if you look at recent changes in the revised national plan, the allocation of a billion euro to the restaurant sector suggests some influence from that quarter. That same sector persuaded then Minister Michael Noonan to dip into the savings of pensioners back in 2011. If the government has money now to throw at the hospitality sector, they should first consider paying back what they took at that time.

A lobby group in the North-West has campaigned for decades for a railway to be built along closed railway lines between Athenry and Collooney, believing that a slow train between those two places would solve all the ills of the region. A more pragmatic lobby group suggests keeping the route in public ownership by means of a greenway while we wait for the train, as was successfully done between Mullingar and Athlone. These old Mayo and Sligo routes won’t be considered for rail use until well after 2050 according to the All-Ireland Strategic Rail Review, so the greenway idea makes sense, creating jobs and amenities now while protecting the route from squatters.

Irish Rail fully supported the latter view, with the CEO confirming to an Oireachtas committee last year that a greenway on the route constituted a ‘win-win’ for Irish Rail and the local community. On that basis, Sligo County Council went ahead and spent over €1.6 million on the project. Then in a staggering U-turn early this year the same CEO said that the Sligo Greenway could not be built on that old rail route, despite the fact that no railway will be built there before 2050, if ever.

Galway TD Sean Canney is the Junior Minister in charge of rail. Given that he is a prominent supporter of the pro-rail lobby and has in the past opposed such greenway developments, it is important that he now intervenes and reinstates this particular project. His intervention would mean that the expenditure to date isn’t wasted.