Dáil debates

Wednesday, 4 October 2006

10:30 am

Photo of Trevor SargentTrevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

The Taoiseach yesterday told us he will not resign and he will not call an early election. The third option I put to him was a reform of the way politics is funded. I suggest it is time we had a measuring of election spending from polling day to polling day, not just during the three weeks before the election. The Taoiseach will understand the reasons for this when he sees the billboards throughout this city and beyond. We should have a limit on the spending at all elections, not just national but local, and limits on postering. Moreover, we should end the culture of corporate donations that is in many ways responsible for the position in which the Taoiseach finds himself.

There should be no place for bank drafts drawn on a company account supporting the lifestyle of a Minister for Finance. Corporate funding has already ruined the careers and legacy of four former Ministers, Ray Burke, Padraig Flynn, Michael Lowry and the late Charles Haughey, as well as the late Liam Lawlor and others. As he admits, it has not helped the Taoiseach's career either, although he may have done the State some service by exposing the hypocrisy and the "power versus principle" issues that the PDs have had to face. Perhaps their political oblivion will be one of the Taoiseach's legacies.

The Taoiseach did not answer the question I put to him yesterday, having first asked it on 18 February 1999. I asked: "[Has] the Taoiseach been the beneficiary of a payment, contribution or gift from any source which, with the benefit of hindsight, he now considers to be unorthodox, unusual or irregular?"

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