BETWEEN now and polling day, politicians from every side of the house will spend every hour of their long waking day politely listening to the hundreds of lobby groups speaking forth on issues from potholes to poverty.

From the more recognisable heavy hitters like the Irish Farmers' Association and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to the lesser known 'Stop Bush Campaign' and '�ire ar son na Beatha', professional lobby groups or 'pester power' is now endemic in Irish politics.

While punters rely on the ballot box to influence opinion, cash-rich lobby groups simply drop into the minister's office for a quiet word.

"Over the years it has reached pandemic proportions and some of them are arguing from the narrowest of self interests, " says Fine Gael's Alan Dukes, reflecting on his experiences as minister for finance in the 1980s.

"Once I had to listen to a crowd arguing for an hour that I should do something I had already decided to do anyway. But I had to let them go on and then leave without telling them, " recalled Dukes.

Fergus Finlay, the chief executive of children's charity Barnardos and former chief adviser to Labour Party leader Dick Spring in the Fianna F�il/Labour government of the mid-1990s, has seen the lobbying phenomenon from both sides now.

"I don't remember being invited to a meeting that happened behind closed doors. But it does happen, " Finlay says. "It has always been a feature of Irish political life that the richer and more powerful you are the more access you have to government. If you employ 5,000 people, the Taoiseach is not going to tell you to get to the back of the queue."

Finlay remembers seeing a lot of the Irish Farmers' Association, Ictu and Ibec walking in and out of ministers' offices.

"Sporting organisations like the GAA, the FAI and the IRFU also lobbied hard, usually in pursuit of funding, " he says.

Since Finlay's time, the American Chamber of Commerce, which proudly boasts that US companies employ 100,000 and contribute Euro50bn to the economy, has risen in stature as a quietly effective lobby group. It is in regular contact with the minister for finance of the day and last year even pressed for more and better airports complaining that top businessmen from the US found it difficult to fly in and and out of the country fast enough.

The National Parents' Council has also emerged as a powerful lobby group. It arrived on the scene during the bitter teachers' strike in 2001 and has been a power ever since.

In his present role as head of Barnardos, Finlay is adamant that lobbying is a fundamentally democratic activity. "But it is critical that the lobbying is done openly and above board. And it has to be concerned with policies and ideas and not the pursuit of vested interests, " he says.

"Every government department should be obliged to publish a list of all the bodies and associations that have made representations to it. But there appears to be no appetite for such transparency. In fact, the restrictions under the Freedom of Information Act have had the opposite effect."

In terms of his own representations for Barnardos, Finlay acknowledges the fair hearing he got from finance minister Brian Cowen before the last budget. But he was less enthused about his predecessor, Charlie McCreevy.

"Cowen included a number of measures in the last budget that dealt with child poverty. In all the budgets produced by Charlie McCreevy, not one had the words 'children' and 'poverty' in the one line, " he says.

Of all the government departments, Finance is lobbied the hardest of all and 200 pre-budget submissions from lobbyists is not unusual.

But the need to regulate the ever more vociferous lobby groups became increasingly evident and in 2002 just before the last general election, the electoral amendment act was passed. Under this act, any lobby group which accepts more than Euro126.97 in donations "for political purposes" must register with the Standards in Public Office Commission.

What are officially deemed 'third parties' must provide the name and address of the person in the group, a statement of the nature, purpose and estimated amount of the donations received and an indication of the lobby group's connection, if any, with any political party or candidate.

The idea, according to a commission spokesman, is to make lobby groups as accountable as political parties and candidates and to put them under closer scrutiny.

Also, a lobby group cannot receive any more than Euro6,350 from one individual in one calendar year and cannot receive anything from an individual or organisation outside the state. "The latter provision was targeted at the large number of pro-life lobby groups that came to the fore during the abortion referendum in March 2002, " admitted the Sipo spokesman.

It turned out to be a highly controversial provision, registration being sternly resisted by most of the pro-life lobby groups. According to a report on the operation of the new rules during the abortion referendum in 2002, the ProLife Movement agreed to be registered after it admitted that it expected Euro200,000 in donations and that its 'no' campaign would ultimately cost Euro400,000.

But Justin Barrett of the Mother and Child Campaign was not so amenable to Sipo scrutiny about his group's campaigning activities around the referendum. In an exchange of solicitors' letters, Barrett argued that the Mother and Child Campaign operated a school-education campaign on the development of the unborn child.

He said that the definition of "political purposes" was circular in that it refers to representing or opposing the policies of a third party but then fails to define a third party.

Barret said that he allowed the Mother and Child Campaign's name to be used on posters and leaflets distributed by the Pro-Life Alliance, a lobby group which was registered. On that basis Sipo agreed Barrett was not a third party and didn't need to be registered.

Groups scrutinised by Sipo during the 2002 general election included the Campaign Against Service Charges, Flouride Free Water, Navan Lobby Group and Anti Fascist Action - all of whom it was decided had not received donations in excess of Euro126 and therefore didn't need to be registered.

The Sipo spokesman acknowledged that trying to determine what is and isn't a donation for political purposes is difficult and pointed out that if the lobby group does not rely on donations there is no need to register.

"This means, for example, that the unions which are funded by members' subscriptions are not registered as third parties even though they are one of the most powerful lobbyists, " said the Sipo spokesman.

Though there are hundreds of lobby groups stalking the corridors of power, just six organisations are registered with Sipo - No Incineration Alliance, Immigration Control Platform, Peace and Neutrality Alliance, Stop Salmon Drift Nets Now, Pro Life Campaign and the Stop Bush Campaign. The Stop Bush Campaign is the only lobby group registered this year so far.

Finlay believes that Sipo should go further. "Lobby groups should be obliged to account for what they spend and this should be open to public scrutiny, " he said.

But Finlay also expressed some concern that the net effect of the range of measures could "stifle advocacy and make it difficult for organisations to pursue legitimate issues".

"The pending charities legislation has a provision which means that charities can only be involved in advocacy as an ancillary activity. But if advocacy or campaigning is at the core of their activities they will not be able to register as charities, " he said.

The recent Broadcasting Commission of Ireland decision to ban the Tr�caire ad about inequality in Africa because it was political is also imposing unnecessary restrictions, added Finlay.

Of course if lobbying becomes too complicated, you can always revert to the old tried and tested cash donation. Of the 22 donations totalling over Euro25,000 declared by Fianna F�il's Se�n Power last year, most were from developers and builders.

Now that's making a point.