Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not say this as a political charge, it is a fact. What this practice does is lay bare the inadequacies of our political funding laws, which need to be reformed to catch up with such practices.

I very much welcome this legislation. It is an important contribution to reforming ethics legislation in this country. However, we need to do much more to ensure that not only do we deal with lobbying, but that we focus on financing of political parties. We also need reforms to how we govern elections, which is a job the programme for Government identifies for a new electoral commission. This issue needs to be addressed holistically and comprehensively in a suite of legislation that will bring up to date the laws we introduced a number of years ago to ensure they are up to speed and are dealing with the practices we have identified in this House and elsewhere in recent times. We need to address this because we have practices going on that are corrosive to politics and this democracy. They need to be addressed, and in a united fashion. I will support the work Deputies Doherty and Mairéad Farrell are doing. I will support any Member of this House who wants to that and do it honestly, openly and fairly because we need to ensure we have a level playing pitch for the way politics is conducted in this country.

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