Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I just wanted to put it on the record because people might not know what we are discussing. Amendment No. 3 is short. I also tabled it on Committee Stage. Everyone accepts its principle. I do not have the figures before me and I am a little bit rusty, but I am sure that the taxpayer is paying €1.5 million into these parliamentary activities allowance funds, formerly known as the party leader's allowance funds, annually. The essence of my point is not unreasonable, in that, when this amount of money is paid into a particular account each year, the people responsible should produce a tax clearance certificate. It would not be acceptable for any State body to pay so much money to an organisation, be it a contractor or service provider, without seeing a tax clearance certificate. This is standard procedure whenever over deals with Departments.

As Deputies, we must return tax clearance certificates when we run for election. Those certificates hold for the period of the Dáil to which we are elected and we are not required to produce a certificate each subsequent year. I am not suggesting that that be the case either, as people elsewhere in the public service do not need to produce their tax clearance certificates each year. However, this is a specific allowance and there should be a requirement of a tax clearance certificate.

The Minister may have been right to a point on Committee Stage, but he nitpicked the word "fund" and asked whether it meant a person, an organisation, a bank etc. We did not really deal with the key issue. I had hoped that he would take the gist of my comments on Committee Stage on board and am disappointed that he did not. I will move on, however, as there may be a good way to resolve this issue.

The first amendment I moved yesterday called for the parliamentary activities allowance to be paid into an account of the qualifying party rather than into a named account of the party leader. We debated this matter then and on Committee Stage. Usefully, the Minister clarified the reality.

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