Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this legislation and I welcome its principle. There are many good aspects to this, and it will bring about additional accountability in how public funds are distributed and accounted for.

That is extremely welcome. I welcome the principle of the Bill on that basis.

A number of issues arise and I hope that during this debate, each party leader will answer to the House on the funding he has been receiving in recent years. I would like to know from each party leader whether staff have received pay increases from public funding since 2007. Have any of those staff received top-ups or bonuses in that period? We have seen problems with charities in receipt of public funds. Not all the money is obtained from public sources, as some money is raised through charitable donations. This is the case with political parties in that they receive both State funds and contributions from members of the public. I hope every party leader will clarify whether all of his staff are in compliance with Government pay guidelines. This is a basic requirement. I hope every party leader will put on the record his position on the moneys his party is receiving. I hope we see fully audited funding of all political groupings and parties where State funds are involved. If an organisation receives even €1 in State funds, all the funds it receives should be accounted for.

I, as a democratically elected Member of a sovereign national Parliament, am denied the right to sit on an Oireachtas committee because I happened to stand up for a clear commitment concerning my constituency given by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health. That commitment was rescinded by them six or eight weeks later in the Parliament. The way that some members of this House are being restricted from sitting on parliamentary committees and receiving basic access to independent funding for research to carry out their role as parliamentarians is unconstitutional. It is not right that because I happen to have been elected as a member of a political party, I am not entitled to access to independent research in order to contribute to this and every other debate in the House.

Every single Member, whether he is in a party or not, should be concerned by the article in the Sunday Independentby Niamh Horan and Fionnan Sheahan on 19 January. Members will know that Fine Gael and the Labour Party are allocated significant public funds on the basis that I and my non-aligned colleagues were members of the party at the time of the general election. It is important to highlight this matter because it indicates the attitude within Government parties. Quoting a senior Fine Gael source, the article states that the party is making every effort to replace Deputy Creighton for the next general election. It is stated that every assistance and resource will be provided. The reality is that, in practical terms, public funds are being used in this regard. They should be returned to the Exchequer. Not only are they being denied to me but they are being used to undermine my constitutional role in the Parliament and the work I do on behalf of my constituents. That is fundamentally unconstitutional. I ask the leaders of Fine Gael and the Labour Party to follow the example of their colleague on the Opposition benches, Deputy Joe Higgins, who handed back the party funding he received on behalf of Deputy Clare Daly, who has left the political grouping.

The system of public funding of the political system represents a cartel that is being controlled by the political parties. It does not make any difference who is in Government. The Government in power can do no wrong, and the Opposition is of the view that everything is wrong. If adversarial politics were so good in this country and if the Dáil worked, why would 100,000 people be leaving this island every year because they cannot get a job here? Political debate should be seen as good and it should be ensured that every Member of this Parliament has an equal capacity to contribute. This should be not only allowed but encouraged.

The figures presented and published by Deputy Stephen Donnelly are interesting. Fine Gael and the Labour Party are receiving more than €900,000 per annum in public funding for Members who are no longer in their parties. This is far more than Mr. Paul Kiely received in a lump sum from the Central Remedial Clinic. His was a once-off lump sum but in this case there is an annual payment to the leaders of the Labour and Fine Gael Parties. This amounts to more than €2.5 million in the lifetime of the Government. Let me put that in context. It is the equivalent of more than 2,500 medical cards, which are currently being denied to sick children across the country. These children could have medical cards if the money went back into the Exchequer rather than being absorbed by the political parties. It should rightly be returned to the Exchequer to support vulnerable and sick children.

The structure of party funding has been commented on by a number of eminent people, two of whom I will quote. Political party funding of €14 million is not fully accounted for or transparent, but it should be. Professor David Farrell in UCD has described the current structure in the country as "a functioning political cartel". If that is not a damning indictment of the system in place, I do not know what is. A former colleague of mine and former member of the Government, Mr. Ivan Yates, calls it “an insiders-only rule”. He said:

It's farcical that Fine Gael and Labour are still drawing down cash on the basis of TDs who have left their party since the election. These TDs are denied the €41,152 allowance that independents get paid annually... They seek to operate a closed shop more effectively than any trade union or cartel.

The members of the Government, particularly the party leaders and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, should reflect on those comments.

The Minister will argue that funding must be based on the date of the election, but that principle is broken in this legislation. Section 2 introduces a new section 10, subsection (12), which contains amending legislation covering the Workers’ Party and the Progressive Democrats. This amendment, being proposed by the Government, breaks a principle and allows for funding to be switched with a group if the party in question is dissolved.

It is an illusion that people vote for political parties, as the Minister argues. What a load of rubbish. The vast majority vote based on the candidate on the ballot paper. The majority of the space on the ballot paper is devoted to the candidate and his or her profession and address rather than his or her ideology or political party. Can we justify the argument that Deputy Penrose is elected because of the Labour Party vote in Longford-Westmeath? I doubt it. I do not believe a Labour Party Deputy had been elected in that constituency prior to his election, and there probably will not be one again, because the vote was a personal vote for Deputy Penrose. Can one argue that the Labour Party Deputies elected in 1997 were elected based on the Labour Party vote? They actually went against the trend and were elected to the Parliament.

The same is true in my own case in 2002. Had I relied on the Fine Gael vote in 2002, it is outside this House I would be sitting, not inside it. Every other Fine Gael Deputy who was elected on that occasion bucked the political trend at the time. It is the same with the Fianna Fáil Members of this Dáil who were elected in 2011. They were not elected on the basis of the Fianna Fáil vote.

On a personal level, I find that comment derogatory. In my own case, the Fine Gael vote is a relatively small percentage of the overall number of votes that I get. In fact, any literature I have ever distributed has had a very small Fine Gael logo on it, either during a general election campaign or between elections. I pride myself on representing every single constituent, regardless of his or her political persuasion. If I can help someone, I will. I have had card-carrying members of Fianna Fáil come to my constituency office who will go out and canvass against me in a general election, but if I can facilitate or help them, I will do so. I believe I have a constitutional obligation to represent them and their views in this Parliament. I take that very seriously and that role is recognised in the Constitution. I have a role as an individual among 166 individuals in this House. For the record, when the Taoiseach came to open my constituency office and announce the closure of the accident and emergency department at Roscommon County Hospital, there was no Fine Gael logo because I pride myself on representing every individual. To say I should not be entitled to independent research because I was elected as a Fine Gael Deputy and that the people of Roscommon and south Leitrim voted for me because I was a Fine Gael candidate is insulting. The people voted for me because I am prepared to stand up and call a spade a spade, which is what I did and now I am being penalised for it.

It is not right that money is going to the Fine Gael Party for the Ceann Comhairle who is supposed to an independent arbitrator in the Chamber. He is an independent arbitrator and it should not be the case that funding is going to the Fine Gael Party because he was elected as a Fine Gael Deputy. He does not have access to the funding put in place and that is not right.

Most Deputies in this House would honestly agree - although they might not say it - that the biggest problem we have in this Parliament is the Whip system.

Everything is subject to a three-line Whip. One never hears about a two-line or a one-line Whip in voting on certain issues in this Parliament. Admittedly, there must be a three-line Whip in government on issues of economic stability, confidence in the Government and so forth, but a very interesting incident happened here yesterday when legislation was being brought through the House. The legislation in question was the Local Government Reform Bill and an amendment tabled by a Fine Gael Member and a Labour Party Member was taken on board by the Minister. That is virtually unheard of in this House because people are afraid of the Whip system. Every single Member, regardless of party-political persuasion, should be actively participating in the enactment of legislation and making changes, as is standard practice in every other parliament in the world. However, because of the Whip system, Members are afraid to actively participate in debates and table amendments to legislation. That undermines the power of the Dáil and weakens government because Ministers are relying on their independent researchers and do not have to justify decisions here in a proper debate in the House. Members who happen to stand up on a particular issue, whatever it may be, and say, "No, this is not the right way to go," are penalised. The Minister for Health came in and blatantly misled the House with figures. He has consistently refused to come back in and correct the record, even when the matter was brought to the attention of the Ceann Comhairle. He used the information to close an accident and emergency department and because I was not prepared to stand by the untruths in this Chamber and turn a blind eye to them, I have been denied the ability to actively participate in debates on an equal footing with every other Member.

We should be encouraging debate. Almost 60% of people did not vote in the referendum on the Seanad. In the last general election 40% did not vote. Surely it makes far more sense to encourage political debate rather than undermine it. In recent weeks I have been asked on numerous occasions about the Reform Alliance and whether it is a political party. I am blue in the face saying, "No, it is not." It is a group of like-minded politicians and Members of this House who are coming together in order to be able to have a voice in this Chamber because we have been deliberately blocked by the Government. Thankfully and thanks to the Ceann Comhairle, we have been given speaking rights. I would not have had the opportunity to speak in this debate were it not for the intervention of the Ceann Comhairle who ensured we were given speaking rights.

It is wrong that I do not have a role in parliamentary committees. I stand by my record in parliamentary committees and defy any other Member to say I did not actively contribute to the debates and the work of any committee of which I was a member since I was elected to this House. In fact, if one looks at my parliamentary committee record, one will see that it would shame many Members in the context of attendance, never mind participation, yet I am not given the right to speak at committees. However, tt is not just me who has been affected. A full one tenth of the Members of the Dáil are denied speaking rights in the parliamentary committee system. Various Ministers and members of the Government have said the committee system is the way forward. They have said they are giving the system the teeth and the resources it needs, but at the same time, they are denying one tenth of the Members of the Dáil the right to participate on an equal footing with their colleagues. That is not right and no one should try to defend it.

All we are looking for is fair play. Money, far in excess of the amount given to Mr. Paul Kiely on a once-off basis, is being given on an annual basis to the Government parties. That money should go back into the Exchequer and be spent on sick children in order that they can have a medical card; that their parents do not have to fight tooth and nail and literally sweat blood to get a medical card for their terminally ill child. That would be a far better way of spending the money. Representatives of every political party should come into the House and explain how they are spending it. They should tell us if they have given salary increases or top-up payments to some of their staff from the €14 million they receive in public funding. They should also tell us if they have given top-up payments from moneys raised through fund-raising activities, over and above the public funds they receive. The same questions that arise in relation to charities also arise in relation to political parties. If it is good enough for charities to have to come out and explain what is going on, it is also good enough for political parties to do the same.

Just because we want to work as a group to try to maximise our contributions to this Parliament and our participation in debates, we are being ridiculed by members of the Government. I could not care less what they think because I have been given a constitutional role to speak on behalf of the people who elected me. When I say "the people who elected me", I mean every single person in my constituency. I also have a responsibility to the people of the country as a whole. I take my constitutional role very seriously and do not believe it is right or legal for any Government to undermine that role and my ability to participate in this House. I urge the Government to look at this issue seriously and bring forward an amendment to the legislation on Committee Stage. Let us treat every Member equally and give every Deputy an equal opportunity to speak in this House in informed debates. Let us bring back relevance to this Chamber. Let us bring back pride into it and have real political debates. Let us make decisions that benefit the country and young people that will enable them to find a job here.

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