Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

The Government has a mandate to reform political funding and is fulfilling that mandate. We will welcome any support we receive in this work and we will be open to ideas and suggestions from any quarter when our legislation comes before the House.

The Bill before us is an attempt to make constitutional provision for an outright ban on corporate donations to political parties and will not work in its current form. It is proposed that an additional article be inserted in the Constitution. Only citizens and others entitled to vote at elections in the State would be entitled to make political donations to organisations or people involved in political campaigning. An exception is made for voters entitled to elect persons to the six university seats in the Seanad. If it was inserted, the amendment would result in the total burden for supporting politicians, political parties and political campaigns falling on voters and taxpayers. Rightly or wrongly, that would be the consequence and if that is what the House wishes to do, perhaps we can arrange a debate on the issue in the next couple of weeks.

It is proposed that a new Article 29A be inserted in the part of the Constitution dealing with international relations. I assume this is an attempt to acknowledge there are international commitments that need to be considered in attempting to ban corporate donations. Even if it was feasible in the context of the Constitution to ban corporate donations to political parties, issues arise in the context of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights deals with freedom of expression, article 11 addresses freedom of association, while article 14 is entitled "freedom from discrimination and the enjoyment of convention rights.

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