Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to amendment No. 80 as it is grouped with amendment No. 74. My amendment gets to the heart of what the Mahon tribunal was all about. It was about corrupt payments to politicians for land rezonings and planning. It was a key issue that angered and scandalised people. Senior figures in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were accused of taking payments of one sort or another to influence decisions around planning, and these were confirmed in some cases. One of the key recommendations of the tribunal has not been included in legislation which was supposed to implement the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal which centred on corruption of senior people in the two biggest political parties in the State. It involved the brown envelope brigade, as they were known, and payments made in Conway's pub at the end of O'Connell Street to senior figures in political parties for planning permission and rezonings. These actions made a lot of money for a lot of people but the people of this country paid a bitter price for it.

Among his many recommendations, Mahon proposed that relevant political donations to public representatives who have a role in decision-making or who influence decisions around planning and rezoning be made public, but this is not included in the legislation. In the Bills digest summarising the responses to the various recommendations, it is suggested that the reason it was not done was that the implications and practicalities would have to be carefully worked through. I do not know why they have to be carefully worked through. We need to know if developers or other people with a stake in planning decisions or development are making donations to political parties. In my own short time as a public representative, I have experienced an instance of somebody with a development proposal offering to pay election expenses to one of our councillors if the councillor supported a particular development plan. It is outrageous but this is still going on. We need to know who is getting donations from developers and how this may relate to how they vote in development plans or how they make observations or otherwise exercise influence around planning because councillors do not have direct influence any more, though their observations can certainly have an influence.

This amendment requires that there be disclosure of any donation of any amount in monetary terms or other form to any political party or individual representative in any county council or to a Member of Dáil Éireann that was made prior to the planning application, and this information shall be made publicly available by the authority. I do not see why we would not include this amendment, given that it was recommended by Mahon. I would be interested to hear what the Minister and other Deputies have to say about it.

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