Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Bill before the House has three aims. It aims to reduce the Leader's allowance by 10%; to introduce auditing and vouching of the leader's allowance; and to abolish severance payments for Ministers. I support all three of these aims. The leader's allowance should be reduced. It should be subject to auditing and all expenditure should be vouched, and severance payments to Ministers should be abolished.

It is unclear why it has taken three years to bring this Bill before the House, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be because certain Government backbench TDs enjoy heckling Independent TDs about the leader's allowance. Of course, what most of them probably do not know is that the Government has twice voted against reducing the leader's allowance and making it vouched. It voted against it in the Seanad when an amendment was tabled by Independent Senators and it voted against it again in committee, when Deputy Catherine Murphy and I tabled an amendment to reduce it and to make it vouched.

While I welcome the purpose of the Bill, the problem for me is that it is unambitious. Why a reduction of only 10%? Why a reduction to only the leader's allowance? Why will there still be limited transparency on how public funding of politics is spent?

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