Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

The amendments from Deputy Stanley and Sinn Féin would effectively delete most of the provisions dealing with corporate donations from the Bill. On Second Stage I outlined the legal reasons an outright ban on corporate donations raises questions with reference to Article 40 of the Constitution on freedom of expression and freedom of association. The amendments put forward by Sinn Féin do not have sufficient regard to the compatibility of an outright ban on corporate donations with these constitutional commitments. My legal advice from the Attorney General is that, notwithstanding that the Government would have nothing against these particular matters in principle, it cannot be done in practice because of the constitutional issues. However, these issues can be referred in the future to the constitutional convention for consideration.

The matter of exemptions for students is already dealt with through amendments that I introduced earlier, which reflect the spirit of ensuring that student societies in colleges continue to be able to engage in politics with the help of funding from the societies and from the third level colleges themselves.

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