Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)

Like other speakers, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. I agree with previous speakers that it is important we bring into this House our experiences on the opportunity for ordinary people to stand for election and represent their communities here. Heretofore, membership of this House was confined to a privileged group of people. It depended on from what family one came, what school one attended, how much money one had and one's connections with developers, big business and so on. As stated, this had to change. Ordinary people must be given an opportunity to stand for election.

From my point of view as a former post office worker, standing for election was difficult financially. It was only through small donations from people within the community that I was able to meet the financial cost involved. It is not easy for ordinary people, who are up against the financial might of the big parties, to engage, in a meaningful way, in the election process. Corporate donations must be banned. I do not see any reason a donation should not be accompanied by a name. I do not believe that people who are prepared to donate money, even if only €20, €30 or €50, would mind being identified. What is important is that there is transparency in respect of donations. This, in turn, will ensure transparency in terms of Members representing big business who support the passage of legislation in that area and Independent Members like me who support legislation in respect of a particular group of people in my community. The support one gets should be clearly reflected in one's work here.

While today we are discussing the issue of corporate donations there are other important issues that need to be discussed, including, as referred to by other speakers, scrutiny of State appointees. This is important to people in the street who believe what we are now getting is more of the same. Fianna Fáil was hammered in the last general election because of its connections with developers, section 23 tax exemptions, the 20% social and affordable housing provision, the cost of land and so on, legislation in respect of which was passed by the Houses. It is no accident that no Fianna Fáil candidate was elected in the Dublin South-Central constituency. Working class people in that area were aware of the corruption, cronyism and elitism linked to that party and what that did to their communities.

State appointees should be scrutinised. Also, there must be accountability from Members of this House. Rather than having to wait five years before having an opportunity to hold Members to account, in terms of decisions made at the polls, people must be able to hold Members to account in respect of what they promised pre-election and what they did post-election. I would like to see introduced a system whereby 1,000, 500 or 200 people could put together a petition in respect of the holding to account any Member who subsequently breaks promises made pre-election.

This is an important debate. As stated, the majority of Members of this House are white and male. We need people from the minorities, women and disabled people to be elected to this House, thus reflecting in legislation passed by the Oireachtas the needs of their communities. I will during my time in this House seek to influence change to allow this to happen. We must change the view that membership of the Houses is open only to the privileged. I am not opposed to donations. Without them, people like me would not be able to stand for election. We need that support unless the Government proposes to introduce State funding of candidates in an election. I do not believe such a move would be welcomed by people in the community.

We must first clean up politics and the perception that there is corruption in this House. That will be one of the most important challenges we face in trying to bring about change. I reiterate my point that the electorate must be able to hold to account parties or candidates who make promises pre-election which they subsequently break post-election, as was done by many Members of the previous Administration and is now being done by members of the current Government. People are angry about this.

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