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The Public Relations Consultants Association Ireland (PRCA), which represents 29 Public Relations and Public Affairs firms in Ireland, has broadly welcomed the Government’s consultation on the proposed introduction of a registration system for Lobbyists. The consultation process is being developed by the Government Reform Unit of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

In its submission, the PRCA says that a system of registration would be beneficial if the definition of lobbying was all embracing and included all individuals and organisations who engage with Ministers, elected representatives and public officials, and if the system was simple and cost-effective to operate.

“In a response to a parliamentary question, the Minister for Finance recently said that he had received submissions from about 700 organisations in relation to the budget and finance bill 2012. He had personally met with various groups including the IFA, the ICMSA, IBEC, ICTU, the CIF and representatives from Community and voluntary groups. Officials from his Department had meetings or contact with a number of organisations including KPMG and Financial Services Ireland”, said Laurie Mannix, Chairman of the PRCA.

“This demonstrates the challenge faced by any Government in seeking to introduce a Register of Lobbyists which is fair and does not create a competitive advantage for one sector, and/or seriously disadvantages other parties. The range of organisations that engage in Lobbying is vast and to be truly fair the Register must keep exemptions to a minimum. In this requirement the EU Transparency Register is a model deserving of consideration”, she said.

Mannix says that the process is so complex that many developed countries have been slow to introduce statutory registration of lobbyists. Only the US, Canada and Germany have statutory registers. The EU Commission has a voluntary transparency register. Within Europe, other than in Germany, there is no statutory regulation. Denmark and Croatia have voluntary registers and the UK is embarking on a consultation process similar to Ireland.

“The type of federal register introduced in the US and Canada would be unnecessarily cumbersome and costly to implement for a country the size of Ireland. However the systems adapted by the EU Commission and elements of some of the Canadian Provinces are worth considering as they are more in keeping with the Irish political system.” said Mannix. “We also have to be careful that any legislation does not impact on the right of citizens to access their public representatives”, she says.

According to a 2004/5 study on the Regulation of Lobbyists in Developed Countries by the Irish Institute of Public Administration in some jurisdictions the focus is to regulate the lobbied rather than the lobbyist due to the difficulties of finding a generally acceptable definition of what constitutes a lobbyist. This is an approach favoured by the PRCA who point out that in the UK, Ministers are obliged to publish their diaries on a quarterly basis.

“The intent of Government is to introduce transparency and accountability and we fully support these ideals. However, the responsibility is on Government to demonstrate to its citizens that all arms of government are acting in an ethical, open and transparent manner. The burden of that responsibility should not be shifted to other sectors of society and there is a danger that this is what is being attempted with this proposed Register of Lobbyists”, she says. “It is the view of the PRCA that the model of publishing Ministerial / Departmental diaries should be considered by the Irish Government if it is committed to transparency and openness in Government”.

Mannix says that it is a concern to PRCA firms that the proposals to register Lobbyists is being undertaken without any formal academic or third party research into the extent of lobbying, the professions and voluntary groups engaged in lobbying, its impact or indeed whether there is an actual need for a Register.

“We believe such research should be undertaken in order to inform the current deliberations and to ensure that the proposed Register of Lobbyists reflects the actual market requirements. An impact assessment of the proposed Register must also be carried out before it is introduced so as to ensure it does not add to the regulatory and ‘red tape’ burden on those required to register, in line with the Government’s commitments as outlined in the recently published ‘Action Plan for Jobs’. This will help to prevent ‘bad’ law which places unnecessary regulatory and compliance burdens on those required to Register”.

A copy of the PRCA submission is available at www.prca.ie

Disappointing Hallmark Sales

Valentine’s Day – the romantic celebration of the beheading of an Italian man in the first century – must be one of the most profitable days for card giant Hallmark. With most of us aiming to tug on heart strings rather than loosen purse strings we’ve seen a marked increase in homemade cards and are predicting doom and gloom around the Hallmark boardroom table.

Thierry Henry to Leave a Lasting Impression

Thierry has one last chance to contribute to the cause of his beloved Arsenal as they take on AC Milan in the Champions League tonight. Considering Thierry’s knack of bagging last minute winners we’re predicting that regardless of the outcome there won’t be a dry eye amongst the Gunner fans in Milan.

I Will Always Love You To Reach Top 10 In The Singles Chart

It’s all Whitney this week from the autopsy and the cancelled public memorial service to Sony jacking up their prices to make a cheap buck. We’re predicting that her signature tune “I Will Always Love You” soars back into the top 10 of the singles chart in the US & UK this weekend.

Pinterest is a social network that operates like an online pin-board. And it’s on the up: in Q4 2011, Pinterest’s traffic increased by 429%. So what’s going on and why should anyone care about another social network?

In combining the principles of social bookmarking with the technological wonder that is a corkboard, Pinterest allows users to create profiles that are virtual pin-boards of the different images that they’ve discovered, earmarked and uploaded. Where Pinterest really impresses is aesthetically. It looks great – imagine a good looking digg. It also has full Facebook and Twitter integration: even boasting its own Facebook timeline app, that allows users to share seamlessly. The downside is that if you wanna get in on the act, you’ll have to wait – it’s currently invite only.

Interestingly, up to 80% of its users are women, according to Ignite Social Media. The site is most popular among 25-34 olds, followed by 35-to-44-year-olds. Gizmodo called it as Tumblr for ladies. As a result, female focused retailers in the US have spotted an opportunity. The likes of Modcloth, West Elm and HGTV are filling up Pinterest with products that customers can ogle, share and purchare. As a result, Pinterest is becoming an important traffic driver, as seen in the infographic, below from tech-marketing and conversion experts Monetate.

My job involves working on the internet. When people ask me what I do, I tend to mutter something about digital marketing. I’ve found it’s best not to go into details. Most people just don’t care enough to decode the technical details. Look at the upcoming raft of legislation relating to the internet and it seems that this willful ignorance is shared by the Irish government.

The snappily entitled S.I. No. of 2011 European Communities (Copyright and Related Rights) Regulations 2011, (aka. Ireland’s SOPA) intends to curtail access to websites in Ireland, without a vote in the Oireachtas. Households may be soon called on to pay a broadcast fee for the privilege of watching TV on computers, phones or tablets. And then there’s the proposal in front of the Oireachtas health committee to place a potential ban on alcohol advertising on social networks.

Online advertising may or may not contribute to the misuse of alcohol. As a nation, we certainly abused it long before Facebook came along. In 2010, five of the top ten Irish Facebook pages belonged to alcohol brands, and you can be damn sure that they were advertising to gain such popularity. Pull the advertising and the marketers, media buyers and designers who were kept gainfully employed will be out of a job.

Our political classes, it seems, have only the vaguest grasp of what the internet is, and what it means to business; from multinationals to online entrepreneurs and humble digital drones. The desire to introduce this sort of legislation without proper debate and discussion shows our legislators will pay lip service to a smart economy, while they pull the plug at the same time.

Ireland has a fairly robust digital sector. It’s taken a while to get there, but it’s growing. International companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Ebay, and Paypal have all set up European bases of operations here. Plus, there are a huge number of SME’s for whom the internet is a lifeblood, there are many more for whom the internet offers avenues for growth. Sadly, our politicians, having had their heads turned by an ailing and anachronistic music industry and conflicting judgments from Europe, are in danger of spoiling the party.

How big is this party? Well, figures revealed by Facebook’s chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg at last weekend’s DLD conference in Munich showed that Facebook and mobile apps support 232,000 jobs to the European Economy.

Facebook alone contributes €15.3bn to the European Union’s gross domestic product. Unfortunately, no figures are available for the Irish Market. But we do know that CD sales in the Republic of Ireland amounted to €56 million last year.

Our legislators are in danger of aligning Irish industrial practices with the past rather than the future. Rather than fostering an entrepreneurial attitude to the biggest upheaval in communications since the printing presses started rolling, they are kowtowing to vested interests and vague European rulings. The really disappointing thing is that apparently the likes of Sean Sherlock have willfully ignored business people and industry bodies like the Irish Internet Association in the planning of this legislation.

Of course, Intellectual property rights holders should be protected. But such protection shouldn’t impinge on freedom of speech, freedom of information and the freedom to do business online. I don’t trust the government, the European courts or EMI to tell me what sites I can visit. Surely protecting rights holders is not mutually exclusive with allowing people to go where they want on the internet.

There’s one other thing that needs to be considered. Local legislation can’t cope with the freewheeling digital frontier that is the internet. To think it can is laughable – an Irish solution to a global problem. Those who want to engage in piracy will always find a way. According to UK regulator Ofcom: “For all blocking methods, circumvention by site operators and internet users is technically possible and would be relatively straightforward by determined users.”

So the pirates will be free to sail the high seas of illegal music downloads, while the rest of us will be hampered from participating fully in an international online marketplace. If the government removes the level playing field, Irish businesses will suffer. SMEs will be at a disadvantage to overseas competitors. Online media spend will be spent elsewhere. The likes of Facebook and Google may well leave these shores, and go somewhere where all websites can be accessed freely, where the threat of litigation doesn’t hang over their heads and where legislators understand what the internet is.

That will leave an army of developers, designers and smart digital professionals with inexplicable jobs looking overseas for gainful employment. Hopefully, Skype won’t be blocked by Ireland’s SOPA legislation, allowing us to stay in touch with friends and family from wherever we end up.

This article originally appeared in The Sunday Business Post, January 29, 2012.

Online & Onscreen

So you’re a fan of Twitter. Well, you’ve probably got nothing on the good folks of Indonesia, who are taking their love affair with micro-blogging to new heights with a film called Republik Twitter. If you can speak Bahasa, you might enjoy the trailer, above.

Kuntz Agus’ film has nothing in common with David Fincher’s The Social Network. It’s a romantic comedy that examines how young people use Twitter and social media in general. Like Short Cuts or Love Actually, it features a range characters; a politician on the election trail, a journalist, a schoolgirl, workers in an ad agency. The twist is that they all use the microblogging service. No doubt, the pay off is that we’re all connected.

A Nation of Twitteratti

Indonesia is the world’s fourth largest user of Facebook and has been singled out by online research firm comScore as the most Twitter-addicted nation on the planet. Twitter has a 20.8% reach. In Ireland, the figure was 8%.

“The silent majority of middle class Indonesians who are so busy with their careers, with their family now have found the place where they can just say what they like, what they think and what they feel, online,” said Indonesian blogger Enda Nasution, explaining the platform’s popularity.

Republik Twitter opens after Valentine’s day, and will hopefully do better than 2010’s I Know What You Did on Facebook, which failed to set Indonesian box office tills rining.