Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 12:

In page 4, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:

“(2) The fund into which the parliamentary activities allowance is paid shall be obliged to produce an annual tax clearance certificate.”.

This amendment is both simple and straightforward. Again, I am of the view that the public would be happy with what is proposed. The amendment states that "The fund into which the parliamentary activities allowance is paid shall be obliged to produce an annual tax clearance certificate." In general, everyone who stands for election must produce a tax clearance certificate before entering the Houses of the Oireachtas. I presume that, following a general election, a Member would have to produce a tax clearance certificate before he or she could be paid. It is not that difficult to obtain a tax clearance certificate. Millions of euro go through the Oireachtas. Those who carry out even the smallest jobs in local schools or for local authorities or the HSE are required to produce current tax clearance certificates. The idea that someone could go for four or five years without being tax compliant and would not require to be so is not really acceptable. I accept that what I propose might create difficulties for individual Members but so be it. Parties that are receiving millions of euro each year should be required to be tax compliant.
Voluntary organisations applying for sports capital grants from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport during the past month were not only obliged to supply tax clearance numbers, they also had to produce copies of their tax clearance certificates before their applications could be considered valid. The tax office was quite busy in the past couple of weeks dealing with organisations which knew themselves to be tax compliant but which did not have tax compliance certificates. Local girl guide troops, hockey clubs or GAA clubs that were seeking grants of €10,000 or €15,000 are obliged to produce up-to-date tax clearance certificates. There is a need for consistency of approach in respect of this matter and it would be wrong for money to be continually handed out to those involved in the political process over a five-year period without their being required to produce tax clearance certificates.
I am sure the Minister sees the consistency in what I am seeking to achieve here. Let there be - as should be the case - an administrative burden on those who are in receipt of the money to which I refer in the context of producing tax clearance certificates. The latter cannot receive money year in and year out without tax compliance certificates being requested from them. I presume the amendment will be accepted, particularly as I cannot understand how a Government that would ask a local girl guide or boy scout troop to produce a tax clearance certificate in order to obtain a lottery grant would not request the same of Members of the national Parliament. There cannot be one standard for voluntary and community organisations and every contractor that works for the State and a different one for the Members of Parliament. I think the Minister will see the merit in what I am saying.