John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I thank my colleague, Deputy Michael Creed, for sharing time. This legislation is somewhat unusual in that it deals with two very different aspects of the political system as it currently operates. Although it goes part of the road to solving a number of problems, it ultimately falls between two stools. I concur with much of what Deputy Creed has said in regard to the first aspect of the proposal, namely, the contentious issue of funding of political parties. The Minister has spoken in the past of the need to eliminate corporate funding, but we are given to understand that the legal advice suggests it might be unconstitutional to ban corporate funding of political parties and candidates in elections. As a result, what is proposed in the Bill is a significant reduction in the existing thresholds at which declarations must be made and a lowering of the sums that are permissible to donate to parties and individuals.

Deputy Derek Nolan rightly observed that one cannot legislate for a moral compass. The legislation might propose reduced rates and declaration thresholds, but the reality is that corrupt individuals and political parties which choose to operate outside of a moral compass will find ways of breaching whatever rules are in place. That is not to say that we should not have rules and, on balance, I support what is proposed in this regard. On the broader issue of political reform, I find myself completely in agreement with Deputy Creed's comments regarding the overwhelming demand from the public at the time of the election last year for a renewal of our political structures and of how the Dáil operates. Unfortunately, I have not seen sufficient evidence as yet of the Government's intent to enforce effective reform in terms of how the political system operates. I remain hopeful, however, that significant changes will be made.

The second issue dealt with in the Bill relates to the gender of political candidates. It is absolutely lamentable that such a low proportion of public representatives, at both national and local level, are women. Politics is certainly the poorer for that imbalance. However, while I support the notion of gender quotas, they are, to some extent, merely window dressing. What is required is a thorough review of how the political system operates and the barriers therein which prevent women and other groups from entering politics. It is not something that can easily be addressed by legislation. The issues to be examined include, for instance, long Dáil sitting hours and local meetings which politicians are obliged to attend and which invariably take place in the evening and late into the night. Such practices discriminate against people with young children. There is an entire structure in place that is the root cause of the failure of women to participate in larger numbers in politics. Unfortunately, the legislation does not go anywhere near addressing it. In fact, legislation in general is probably not the right place to seek to address it.

I agree with Deputy Creed that there is a significant possibility that the part of the legislation dealing with gender quotas may be unconstitutional. Given that a joint committee of the Oireachtas concluded less than two years ago that the imposition of gender quotas by way of legislation would be in conflict with the Kelly judgment and constitutionally dubious in respect of the Article 40 provisions on freedom of association, it seems extraordinary that the Government is now of the view that this difficulty can be overcome. I agree with Deputy Creed that the advice of the Attorney General in this regard should be made public. The difficulty in getting more women and more people of diverse backgrounds into politics goes very much to the structure of our political system. What we must confront are issues that cannot necessarily be corrected in legislation but may be tackled by changing how we do our business. We must ensure the Oireachtas becomes a more attractive place for women and other groups who are not currently represented if we are to encourage them to seek membership of this House in the future.

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