Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I compliment Deputies Paul Murphy, Donnelly and Shortall on bringing forward the motion, which I support. Public and commercial life must be transparent and accountable. The purpose of the motion is not to accuse any individual or party but to put in place effective structures to ensure corruption in public and commercial life is dealt with effectively. The motion recognises that "corruption in public and commercial life represents a great threat to the democratic functioning of the State" and that "the State has no effective means of preventing, investigating or prosecuting corruption or white-collar crime as responsible agencies are too disconnected, lack appropriate powers, or lack necessary resources". Nobody can take issue with those statements. I support the proposal for the establishment of a permanent, independent, anti-corruption agency to deal with the situation and that the agency should have powers of investigation, compellability and testimony taking, court authorised search and seizure, prosecution at District and Circuit Court level and arrest to deal effectively with the situation and to ensure public and commercial life are accountable and transparent.

The manner in which election after election, politicians and political parties make promises they have absolutely no intention of keeping is a grave threat to the democratic process. They break those promises and commitments on a regular basis. If one looks at the previous election, one will be able to confirm that this happened. Fine Gael wanted to burn the bondholders. It told us that the banks would not get another cent, that the trolley situation in hospitals would be solved, that it was unjust to tax the family home and that disability would be a priority. The Labour Party gave us the old line that it was Labour's way and not Frankfurt's way. It said that there would be no water charges and no reduction in child benefit. It made a series of other promises as well. Both parties happily went on to break all of those promises. There must be sanctions for such behaviour. The possibility of losing an election after five years is simply not an adequate sanction. The public must be in a position to ensure elected representatives - Deputies, Senators or councillors - can be recalled if they deliberately break promises they make during election campaigns. I would like that to be noted as well.

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