Honest Politics, Better Government

The Social Democrats want an end to ‘golden circle’ politics. We have a plan to open up government and improve accountability while also tackling corruption in politics and public life.

Poorly designed systems of governance and accountability are at the heart of cost overruns involving massive amounts of public resources. This must change. Too often, decisions on the allocation of these resources are influenced by the interests of well-connected individuals and organisations.

There is currently no effective means of preventing, detecting and prosecuting corruption and white-collar crime. Tribunals, Commissions, and Oireachtas inquiries come and go, producing little or no consequences.

One of our major policy priorities is the establishment of an Independent Anti-Corruption Agency (IACA). This would operate as a standing Commission of Investigation, taking over the remit of SIPO; the Corporate Enforcement Agency; the Registrar of Lobbyists, and the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

Transparency and integrity must be the defining features of all decision-making – that is the only way we can achieve true accountability.

Our Honest Politics, Better Government Priorities

• Create a new Government Accountability Office within the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, as a real-time public spending watchdog.
• Establish an Independent Anti-Corruption Agency (IACA) to tackle white collar crime and corruption in the corporate world and political sphere
• Reduce the dependence on large and expensive corporate consultancies, instead building expertise and capacity within the civil and public service
• Remove political involvement from judicial appointments by establishing an independent body to carry out this role
• Reform the Lobbying process in Irish politics, to increase transparency and trust
• Resource SIPO (and then our IACA) to conduct thorough spot checks of lobbying returns and to ‘name and shame’ lobbyists who contravene the law

Find Out More

You can read more about our policies and plans in our Honest Politics, Better Government policy document, linked below.