Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

On the one hand I am sympathetic to what the Minister has in mind. Personally, I do my best not to take corporate donations. I have returned cheques I received. However, there might be the odd exception where one might get a donation from someone where there was a personal relationship and it was a small donation. When one has a fundraising event such as a race night if a person buys an advertisement then one is getting into the area of corporate donations if the business is incorporated.

I have a few difficulties with the proposal. One is that when one limits who can donate to parties one could be putting the onus on the candidate to come up with the money and that might favour the rich or a person might mortgage his or her house and then there is the possibility that he or she might become bankrupt and the attendant dangers that go with that such as being ineligible for a position on various elected bodies. That problem needs to be taken into account. We need to think through the proposal. If one says corporate donations are bad then the implication is that individual donations are good. Then one could have a wealthy individual making donations.

In addition, the Government parties have an advantage. We have had the experience, such as prior to the 2007 election, where Ministers took out big advertising campaigns which put them to the forefront and a regular candidate cannot compete with that. The issue is extremely complicated. Donations should be limited. Transparency is important. We should also limit the amount that can be spent. I am in favour of the proposal but the Minister needs to be careful about how he does it.

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