Alex White (Dublin South, Labour)

My colleague, Deputy Ciarán Lynch, concentrated on the gender balance provisions contained in this Bill. I commend the Minister on these provisions, which are profoundly progressive and extremely welcome. They will bring Ireland into line with best practice and, in many cases, allow us to be even more progressive than many countries.

It is understandable that debates on women in politics tend to revolve around ideas about culture. I agree with Deputy Finian McGrath that many of these cultural factors mitigate against women's participation in politics. However, as politicians we can play a role not only in discussing ways of changing culture and asking how people can be persuaded to think differently about politics, but also by introducing measures that bring about this change. Instead of holding a sometimes vague debate about changing culture, we can legislate for change. The measures on gender balance set out in this Bill are progressive and ingenious. In time they will be successfully directed to bring about the change that would not otherwise happen.

That brings me to my second main point about the Bill. It is an earnest of the Government's intention and good faith in respect of the overall reform programme to which the programme for Government is committed. Earlier Deputy Mattie McGrath from Tipperary South made a speech, which I have heard him make previously here, about myriads of promises made before general elections with the suggestion that none of them had been kept, which of course, is not true. Ministers and Deputies on the Government side of the House are often so busy concentrating on doing the work that they do not make the point in the House often enough that the area of reform in the programme for Government is being pursued and legislation is being introduced.

We are putting our legislative money where our mouth is, if that is not an unfortunate metaphor in this debate. We are debating a Bill to reform the electoral system, which represents actual progressive change in our political system which will have a real impact on how Irish politics is managed and functions in our democracy. The heads of a Bill on whistle blowing have already been produced and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, of which I have the honour of being Chairman, has already begun a discussion on it to assist the Minister. The Government has already been involved in an early scoping exercise to report on how legislation on lobbyists might appear, and that legislation will happen. The Government is also considering legislation on Executive responsibility and Civil Service responsibility, which I believe will be pursued. There is a real commitment by the Government to introduce changes on the Freedom of Information Act and to roll back some of the unacceptable curtailments that were introduced. This is a Government that is being true to the undertakings in the programme for Government, which was agreed just over a year ago.

Let us consider the recommendations from the Moriarty and Mahon tribunals. The recent Mahon tribunal recommendations were summarised under seven different sections. The Government is already moving on five of those seven areas: whistle-blowers legislation; limits on the amounts that can be given in political donations; the requirement in respect of transparency of donations; the register of lobbyists; and - perhaps this remains to be addressed - the expansion of disclosure requirements for public officials to include areas of conflict of interest. The Government is alive to all these issues. Sometimes those of us on the backbenches can be frustrated at the pace of change. That is natural and understandable because part of our job is to continue to advocate and agitate for these changes. I am very happy that most of the headline reform issues are being pursued by the Government. This Bill is an important example not of broken promises, but of promises actually being fulfilled.

I particularly welcome the provisions in the Bill on the source of election funding. As a practising politician, I have been through a number of elections - although not as many as some of my colleagues in the House at the moment. Leaving aside the source of funding for a moment, we need to ask ourselves if the overall aggregate amount of money spent on elections is excessive. There is an element of self-criticism in this. I have driven for two or three miles along roads on the south side of Dublin and put up a poster along every second lamppost - sometimes every lamppost. We then congratulate ourselves on how well it looks with a sweep of posters continuing for a few miles. What in the name of God are we doing, trying to festoon every lamppost across miles of roads whether in suburban, urban or rural areas? Is it absolutely necessary? Perhaps curtailing the source of funding will have a consequence on the overall amount of hardware out there. I am not against posters and believe their presence at election time is part of the process of an election. However, I wonder whether there are too many of them and whether we could consider a way to curtail the number - not the fact - of posters that appear at election time.

Last night I was out campaigning in favour of the stability treaty and I heard opposite views by people who lived two or three doors apart. One complained of not having received enough information even though I was standing ready to hand over a leaflet. Other people complained they received too much and effectively regarded it as junk mail which they did not want it in the letterbox at all. It is not always easy to strike the right balance regarding the amount of material that is distributed, bit it is a matter that should give us cause for thought.

I very much welcome the proposals to reduce the limits on the amounts that can be donated. I welcome even more the additional transparency that will be introduced, which is progressive and correct. I believe I understand the legal background as to why an absolute ban on corporate donations would fall foul of the Constitution. Perhaps during the course of the passage of this legislation we could have a more extensive debate on why that is so. There is considerable jurisprudence in the United States on freedom of expression suggesting that making a financial donation is essentially a form of freedom of expression and to curtail that in absolute terms would offend against the American constitution. I hope we would be absolutely clear in monitoring this in the future.

I ask the Minister to address this in his closing remarks if he has an opportunity. I understand that donations of up to €200 can be given by corporate entities in the previous manner in which they were given, but anything above that would require the corporate body making the donation to be registered with the Standards in Public Office Commission and ensure a resolution was passed by its general meeting authorising that donation. Even in circumstances where a corporate body registers with the Standards in Public Office Commission and passes a motion at its general meeting, is there still a restriction on the amount that such registered entities can give?

I raise this matter for the purpose of it being shot down, which I hope it will be. Is there any concern that in the future, given what we have seen in the US, corporate entities could possibly be set up just for the purposes of donating to political parties? It is hard to imagine that happening in our current situation. However, in the future could a new body - let us call it "Builders' Friends Ireland Limited" be set up? It could register with the Standards in Public Office Commission and pass motions to make donations - perhaps large ones - to political parties. That kind of thing has happened in the US where such entities are interposing themselves into the political system. It may be that the architecture of this legislation would not allow that to happen, but it is important that we would guard against that occurring. There is little or no likelihood of it happening at the moment, but when we pass legislation we should think about the future.

I welcome the legislation and am grateful for the opportunity to speak.

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