Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The party decides what to do with the funding, not one individual or one small group. As Deputy Ó Cuív put it, the money is our money collectively, not individually. We have been consistent in our interpretation in this regard. This is the reason the Ceann Comhairle is included in the calculations as the money is for the party, not for the use of the Ceann Comhairle. He was elected as a member of Fine Gael and, therefore, is included in the metric for the calculation of the allowance distributed between the parties. That is why if a Member dies, the money stays with the party until a by-election is held and the money is then decided in terms of the vote of the people subsequently. It is not for the individual Member. It is for the party grouping to which that person was elected by vote of the people. People have strong views on this but we will have further discussion on this matter on Committee Stage.

The second point to which we responded is that raised by Deputy Donnelly who provided figures which he claimed showed that the funding provided to parties far outweighs that provided to Independent Members. Those figures provided by Deputy Donnelly were re-used by several other Members in their contributions. They are misleading and I want to explain why. Deputy Donnelly included all funding provided to parties and simply divided the totality of funding by the number of Deputies in order to compare the parliamentary activities allowance received by Independent Members of this House in a manner that suited the narrative he was presenting. Deputy Donnelly has gone even further in so far as he ignored Senators in his calculations, as did Deputy Catherine Murphy in respect of the figures she subsequently referred to. Deputy Donnelly has also included funding provided to parties under the Electoral Acts, which is calculated on the basis of first preference votes with no relationship to Deputies in a party. It is votes cast by the people that determines that allocation so one cannot divide that up on a Deputy basis. Funding under that Act is also intended to fund a much broader range of activities by parties than simply parliamentary activities for which the allowance we are discussing here is intended, for example, improving female and youth participation in politics.

The reality is that when one takes the total current amount of the allowance paid to the parties based on the number of Deputies at the time of election and the allowance paid to Independent Deputies and divides the figure by the number of Deputies, the average amount paid out is €39,681. Independent Deputies such as Deputy Donnelly receive €41,152 so Independents actually get above the average.

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