Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I found it interesting that the Government chose to have this debate on its response to the Mahon tribunal at the last moment. I can only assume it is part of a fairly concerted strategy over the past couple of weeks to try to end this session of the Dáil on a positive note and give the public the sense that things are moving in the right direction, that the Government is delivering and doing well and that we are on the road towards a better future. Of course, we all hope that is the case, and that this is not just a communications and spin strategy and maybe an emergency response to the disastrous situation that faced the Government in terms of the massive opposition to the unjust household charge.

While there is a lot of self-congratulation about the response to the Mahon tribunal and the Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill, which has just been passed, it is important not to be too triumphalist about all of this because the backdrop is an unprecedented period of corruption which culminated in the greatest economic crisis we have seen since the foundation of the State - a crisis which has left the majority of people in a very bad situation. More people are living in poverty than ever before in recent times, more people are homeless, more people are on housing lists, more people are unemployed and huge numbers are emigrating. That is the legacy of the period of corruption.

I heard some Deputies, in particular from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, refer to the corruption as something that existed among some Deputies. It is important to underline that this is not what Judge Mahon said. He said there was endemic corruption in Irish political life. That means it was rampant across Irish political life. It is worth saying, not as a point-scoring effort but as a simple statement of fact, that the two parties which dominated Irish political life and which Mahon described as endemically corrupt were Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. If Irish political life was endemically corrupt during the period leading to this disaster, then obviously that endemic corruption emanated primarily from those two parties, so a little bit of humility about that legacy and the consequences of the period of endemic corruption would be quite useful.

It is far too early to say whether this is a serious effort to clean up Irish politics and whether the measures contained in the Bill are more than just window dressing which has been forced on the Irish political establishment as a result of the disastrous crisis that now besets Irish society and the anger of the people at that rampant corruption. I do not think the signs are very good or that we have much to be proud of given that we spent €0.5 billion on a whole succession of tribunals and virtually nobody who was prominent in that period of endemic corruption has been put in jail or has had real justice served on him or her. In fact, most of the key players in both parties have walked away from political life with massive pensions, having presided over or been involved in that level of corruption. They are wealthy people and remain prominent in the higher echelons of Irish society. If Fine Gael was serious about leading by example, it would tell us who were the corporate and other wealthy donors who helped it amass a €3 million war chest prior to the last election so that we would know which individuals and corporate interests were influencing the political decisions which have, for example, left NAMA developers still being paid €100,000 or €200,000 to preside over NAMA assets and other such activities.

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