Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I understand the Deputy's point and he made it forcibly on Second Stage. I have no resistance to the point. The allowance is for the party and not for the party leader. My job is to ensure the payment is accountable. The legislation contains accountability measures which make the party leader responsible. A person must be designated to be accountable and it needs to be the person who gets the money. It cannot be payable to some other individual who might be a temporary officer of the party and then have someone else accountable for it. While it is a parliamentary activities allowance for the designated activities as set out, the party leader - in the case of Fianna Fáil, uachtarán Fhianna Fáil - is the person responsible for accounting for it.

For the sake of neatness and clarity, the recipient must be responsible for accounting for the money and he or she will also be the person who will furnish the accounts in the way that is set out under the new regime that will apply to everybody who receives funds from the parliamentary activities account. I am happy with the principle of it but I do not want to dilute the accounting base by putting in place a different nexus. The term "payable to the Parliamentary Party" is too broad. In such circumstances, would the funds be payable to the head office of a particular party? The latter is not the way it should be because we are concerned here with parliamentary functions. Would they be paid to the chairman of the parliamentary party? We need to designate someone and it seems simple and clear to me that the leader of the party would be the designated recipient and the person charged with being accountable for ensuring that the money is properly expended in the way set out in the legislation.