Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)

I appreciate being given the opportunity to speak on the issue and am glad to see an issue this important being subjected to robust and constructive debate in the Chamber. I hope the contributions made during the course of this dialogue will go some way towards fine tuning the details concerned so we can enact the best possible legislation to deal with the whole issue of political donations.

In line with previous speakers I must sound a note of irony that Fianna Fáil has introduced this Private Members' Bill so soon into the life of the new Government given it had ample time and opportunity over the 14 years it was in power, not only to publish the Bill but to enact and implement it. Furthermore, the party effectively buried the Bill in the latter months of its tenure in Government in spite of repeated declarations by its colleagues in Government, the Green Party, that it was a top priority of its legislative programme. Fianna Fáil's sudden and renewed interest in the entire area now that its members have entered the Opposition benches strikes me, as I assume it does most reasonable minded commentators, as an act of enormous cynicism and political posturing. It contravenes the party's recent declaration that it was engaging in a new style of constructive politics, bereft of point scoring and one-upmanship.

The Fianna Fáil Bill is not only overdue, it is also vastly underconsidered. It has aspects that are worthy of mention as well as a whole host of absentee points that merit, at very least, declarations.

The link in this country between business and politics is an issue of substantive concern to ordinary people. Unfortunately, in most countries, financial support from business to politicians is perceived by the public to have only one purpose, namely, the securing of commercial advantage. We have seen how the money-driven model of politics that exists in America can infect the public perception of politics, with business and corporate interests seen to be taking precedence over societal interests. In Ireland, this perceived link between political donations and public policy is particularly pronounced because people's views have been further coloured by controversies such as those revealed in the Moriarty, Flood and Mahon tribunals, in spite of the good work they did. They catalogued high profile figures from business and political worlds who were found to have been trousering donations in exchange for various deals, contracts and such like. These lurid scandals rocked the State to its core and have done untold damage to the body politic and to Irish politics in general. That situation does not reflect well on any of us in this House. The real victim is the body politic. Politics is a fine and noble profession. The vast majority of people in this House - some 1,100 throughout the years - have been hardworking, decent, honourable people. Only a handful corrupted the system for their own ends.

Buying influence and access to senior members of Government and civil servants is a practice that belongs firmly in the past, along with the Galway tent and the Charvet shirts, all those words that have become synonymous in recent years with dirty politics. Sometimes the cross over between the corporate and the political is unavoidable but we must try to temper the level of intersection between both areas. To this effect my party intends to publish, enact and implement legislation during our time in Government which will shield against the influence of commercial interests in politics, prevent the imperative that created the Moriarty and Mahon tribunals and sever, once and for all, the link with that ugly past in political culture in this country.

As a new Government, tasked with an overwhelming mandate from the people to whom we promised to be open and honest, we need to lead from the front and show people that politicians and civil servants cannot be contaminated by business interests. We cannot afford to brush this aside as successive previous Governments have done. The people's faith in us to reform political system is paramount and we cannot afford to forget that. Already, in the eight or nine weeks this Government has been in office, it has led by example and I hope it will continue as it started in that regard.

We cannot afford to pass this legislation lightly and that is why I intend to address some of the elements of Fianna Fáil's proposals. There is a fundamental need to reform the funding of politics in this country but this Bill simply does not go far enough. It is limited in focus and some of its elements are unworkable. To be specific, it contains a provision to restrict corporate donations from companies, trade unions, societies and building societies but there are no restrictions for donations by partnerships, unincorporated bodies, trusts, sole traders and non-governmental organisations. At very least that is inequitable. There must be more consistency in the way Fianna Fáil approaches corporate donations and the issue in general. The party has flip-flopped consistently on the issue in recent months, adopting no fewer than three different positions since the beginning of this year - one in Government, one during the general election and another now in Opposition as it advocates greater reductions.

The Bill proposes that the Standards in Public Office Commission should audit the accounts of political parties every year. However, this ignores mechanisms already in place between SIPO and parties whereby parties are required to submit audited financial statements in respect of State funding received under Electoral Acts and through the party leader's allowance. The provision in this Bill would undoubtedly lead to a convoluted situation whereby parties would submit audited statements to SIPO while SIPO would be required to carry out a further audit on those same parties. An issue to be considered for the future is duplication. We cannot afford to pass legislation that will add to the confusion and unnecessary costs associated with duplication. Furthermore, Fianna Fáil proposes that candidates who have been unsuccessful in elections should publish their donation statements within 25 days of polling. Successful candidates would have until 31 March of the following year to declare donations. However, the measure proposed by Fianna Fáil does not appear to provide any demonstrable improvement on current arrangements.

An aspect of the Bill I welcome is the proposed extension of the supervision powers of the Standards in Public Office Commission to include independent expenditure in referenda. This is a worthy inclusion in the Bill because specific problems have arisen in the past with regard to the regulation of spending and sources of income of groups campaigning at referenda, for example, the likes of Libertas.

However, the overall objective of this Government, namely, to make the political system more open and transparent for the voter, would not be achieved by this Bill as it currently stands. The fundamental point is that Fianna Fáil has a record of failure in reforming the area of political funding and therefore this latest gesture is a see-through and cynical exercise, particularly given the party's links with big business in the past which were well documented, not least by tribunals.

The Labour Party has a strong record in transparency and our party ideology is underpinned by principles of fairness and equality. That is why we fully support the reform of the political funding structures. That is just one component of our broader campaign to reform the Irish political system. When last in government we enacted both the Standards in Public Office Act and the Freedom of Information Act. In addition, we have championed for the protection of lower-paid workers, the unemployed and the marginalised. Such people have come to expect better from the political system.

There is a saying in west Cork which holds that there is none so pure as the reformed. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle can finish the sentence himself. The Damascene-type conversion of what I was going to call the major Opposition party - perhaps that is an issue to be defined by the Technical Group - is welcome. I hope its conversion to reforming political funding structures will be carried forward in the years ahead. It is good that we are debating this issue in the House. I welcome the U-turn in Fianna Fáil's policy on political donations.

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