Brendan Halligan
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Background
Brendan Halligan is the managing partner of CIPA, a public affairs consultancy. CIPA was hired by the tobacco industry to monitor the decision making process in Brussels in the mid-1990s.
CIPA worked for the Confederation of European Community Cigarette Manufacturers (CECCM), a European Union lobbying organisation funded and controlled by the tobacco industry. It promotes what it calls “reasonable and workable tobacco regulation” in the EU.1
Halligan founded the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) in 1990, “an independent think tank” according to the organisation’s website, of which Halligan is currently chairman.
His CV at the IIEA website lists the following activities:2
- Chairman of IIEA
- Chairman of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland
- Director of Mainstream Renewable Power
- Adjunct Professor of European Affairs (UL)
- Honorary Doctorate of Letters (UCD)
- Former Managing Director of CIPA – a public affairs consulting company
- Former Chairman of Bord na Móna
- Former Member of the European Parliament
- Former TD
- Former General Secretary of the Irish Labour Party
Links to the tobacco industry
According to tobacco archive documents, Halligan was often present at CECCM meetings in the 1990s on CIPA’s behalf.3 Since he founded the Institute of International and European Affairs in 1990, his work for CIPA and the tobacco industry overlapped with the think tank’s activities.
“…Indirect Lobbying Counter-Action on Our Behalf”
In December 1993, when the European Parliament adopted a Motion for Resolution on Health Education in Schools, CECCM’s director asked CIPA to monitor the tabling of amendments “in case any of them should call for indirect lobbying counter-action on our behalf”.4