John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

The Deputy will appreciate that we cannot legislate for those who are media savvy. I understand a very media savvy person may be running for Fine Gael in the forthcoming by-election in Dublin South. Perhaps he could confirm whether this rumour, which has been circulating around the House for quite some time, is true.

I will provide the background to the legislation, which has been in gestation for quite some time. We took soundings from people across the board. The consultative committee on local government reform, which included members of all the main local government representative bodies and which was involved in the drafting of the Green Paper on Local Government Reform, considered the issue of expenditure limits and we had good feedback in this regard. The consultative committee suggested the limit be set at approximately 50% of the general election spending limits. The limit for a three-seat Dáil constituency is €30,150, so half of this is €15,075. I hope the Deputy sees the logic behind this.

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